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An acquaintance recently came back from Dubai and told me the country boasts “50 percent of the world’s cranes.” After picking my jaw up off the floor, I said, “Come on.” He said, “I’m telling you, I’ve never seen so much construction in my life.”
I got home that night and started to do some fact-finding. I knew the little country was experiencing a building boom, but 50%? No way.
So in Tuesday Turnip style, I Googled “Dubai” + “the world’s cranes.”
One site said “Experts cautiously estimate that 15% to 25% of the world’s cranes are in Dubai.” While another said “About 30,000, or 24 per cent of the world’s 125,000 construction cranes, are currently operating in Dubai, according to the organisers of the Conmex construction machinery exhibition.” Still another said Dubai was home “to an estimated 17% of the world’s cranes,” while The Guardian said “a fifth of the world’s cranes are now at work here.”
However you count them, Dubai is clearly exploding. Some 250,000 Indian and Pakistani men have been put to work under those cranes, turning the country into a massive little playground for the rich.
One of the more interesting things I culled while scouring the Web was the below quote concerning Patrick Mullaney, Tower Crane Operations Manager for Select Plant Gulf, the heavy machinery arm of Al Naboodah Laing O’Rourke.
On arrival [in Dubai, Mullaney] approached the Guinness Book of World Records [committee] to enter Dubai for the high number of cranes on the site at the time. “There were 50 cranes, all over the 12-tonne capacity. It’s the most we’ve had at the site and we are just one contractor. We tried to get it in the Guinness Book of World Records, but they weren’t that interested,” said Mullaney.
Comments (5)
Comment
When our family hiked the Camino in Spain in 2002, we were amazed to find cranes all across northern Spain. In villages of just a few buildings there’d be a crane. We could almost quit following the blazes and look for the cranes on the horizon. It was the first year of Spain’s use of the Euro, and we wondered if all that money pouring into the country had had a boom building effect. We saw more cranes on that hike than I’d seen in a lifetime in the States.
posted by Leslie Booher on 2-21-2007 at 9:06 am
I lived in Dubai for 2 years and was involved in the construction industry, the exploitation of the Indian and Pakistani workers is what ultimately made me leave and return to Ireland, it is a modern and very open slave labour market, there guys make little more than $100 a month, live in “Labour camps” and are forced to repay their flights over to Dubai to loan sharks back in their native country, they are also made work 6 days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day and there is little regard for health and safety, they also do not get vacation time for at least 2 years
posted by Alan on 2-23-2007 at 7:48 am
“Flock of Cranes”? I prefer “Flock of Seagulls”. Har har har.
posted by Jared Probst on 1-25-2008 at 12:26 pm
I work for the largest industrial auctioneer in the world. We auction construction equipment nearly everywhere in the world (including Dubai) and a couple of years ago my coworkers in Dubai produced a slide show illustrating how many tower cranes were in Dubai. In 2005, it was estimated that 14% of the world’s tower cranes were located in Dubai. There are many more there now than there were then and judging by the amount of equipment that I see exported from the U.S. to UAE, it really is the fastest growing city in the world.
posted by Ssquach on 1-25-2008 at 3:30 pm
When we lived in Germany in the 1980s, there was so much construction, we jokingly referred to the crane as the national bird.
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posted by John Governale on 4-6-2008 at 9:45 am