CHINA has systematically covered up the accidental deaths of at least 10 workers, and perhaps many more, in a rush to construct the futuristic "bird's nest" stadium in Beijing for the Olympic Games.
The estimates are drawn from dozens of interviews conducted over six months, on condition of anonymity, with employees from the huge building site in a northern district of the capital.
Witnesses have spoken of seeing workers plummet to their deaths from the perilous heights of the stadium, designed by a consortium including British engineering firm Arup and Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron.
The bodies were swiftly removed by squads of armed police, and workers ordered not to mention the deaths to anyone or speak of them among themselves.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown heaped praise on the stadium after a visit on Saturday, calling it "a huge effort by the people of Beijing, a huge contribution by China to world peace and prosperity".
Chinese officials deny there have been any deaths. The authorities have ensured the silence of relatives with unusually high compensation payments, reportedly up to $30,000. Labourers on the site said they earned $7 a day and skilled welders $10 a day.
The sheer ambition of Herzog & de Meuron's design has required workers to spend long periods at great heights to weld and join struts and girders that are interwoven to form a bowl shaped like a bird's nest. Arup said: "Sadly, fatalities during construction could be due to many different things that have nothing to do with design."
Most workers employed on the project are poorly educated migrant labourers from inland provinces who have scant specialist training and no experience of building on such a gigantic scale.
No account was more telling than that of a 25-year-old construction worker from Gansu province who worked as a welder at the site for more than a year.
"One day towards the end of (2006) the weather was terribly cold. On the top of the 'bird's nest' I could see some ice. I stood on the ground, thinking of how best to climb to the top to get on with the welding," he said.
"Just at that moment I heard a terrible scream. Before I realised what had happened I heard a thump on the ground. I suddenly realised that someone had fallen from the top of the nest - yet I couldn't see anybody on our sandpile, which was heaped in the middle of the running track.
"The manager ordered workers to excavate the sand with shovels. After half an hour a dead body was pulled out of the heap. The body was gory and I didn't dare look at it. The body was taken away immediately and everyone on the spot was told to keep it secret. For a couple of nights after that I had nightmares. In the end I quit and went back to my home town.
"So why did I come back again? Because I couldn't find a better job. And I guess because my girlfriend broke up with me. I felt lost. So I came back here to forget my unhappiness through hard work."
Another man saw a workmate die. "He slipped off the boards, the safety rope broke, he fell 30m to the ground from the scaffolding and died," the worker said. "He was only 33 years old and had a pretty young wife and a lovely son ... People said his wife got more than 200,000 yuan ($31,500) ... At least his wife and son were lucky."
Some deaths appear to have been bad luck. One employee recalled a worn-out migrant worker who decided to sleep overnight on the ground inside the stadium. When a bulldozer drove into the arena before first light, it ran over him. The driver was so stunned that in his confusion he reversed the vehicle and its tracks crushed the victim a second time.
The lead contractor on the stadium is the state-owned Beijing Urban Construction Group. There are five levels of subcontractors on some jobs. Several workers said the subcontractors tried to conceal injuries from authorities for fear of losing future projects.
For the younger men, sleeping in thin-walled, 12-bed dormitories, the lack of women is "a big problem". "Most of us have not been home to sleep with our wives for six months or a year. The single men have no chance or time to talk love with girls," said a worker named Qi.
His friend Huang, 25, boasted: "I go to the barber's shop very often and I know how to bargain with the prostitutes. Sometimes I get a discount from 200 yuan to 50 yuan." All the young men laughed at him, shouting: "You cheapskate!"
They get by, like many Chinese workers, on a mixture of pride, fatalism and necessity. They are not ignorant. "We know that builders died in Greece at the Olympic site," said one labourer. "At first the government denied it but after the opposition party and workers' union disclosed the names of the dead the government had to admit it.
"But in China who dares to investigate such a sensitive issue? Would you dare?"
No one was available for comment at the Beijing 2008 Olympic organising committee.
The Sunday Times
