this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2025
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According to a documentary I watched on television some years ago, there was an expected one death for every million dollars spent on a skyscraper
There is absolutely no way that's correct. No one is expecting 500+ deaths on a construction site.
I thought that maybe that documentary was referring to a specific time period so I looked into it...
Empire State Building, 1929: 5 deaths and the building cost 41 million dollars.
Sears Tower, 1973: 5 deaths, 175 million
World Trade Center (full complex), 1973: 60 deaths, 1.5 billion
The only skyscraper I found that is close to that figure is the Burj Khalifa (2010, 1.5 billion) which "unofficially" had hundreds of deaths. And even then.... it'd need to be 1500 deaths to match that statistic.
Pretty sure that was pre OSHA
Still a far cry from 1 death per million dollars. Even what is considered the deadliest skyscraper construction in history (Burj Khalifa) is short.
There's no way that stat was ever true.