Erwin Makafana, 8, has been killed after concrete slabs fell on him while playing at an under construction Tongan community church site in Sydney two days before Christmas.
The incident happened on December 23 at 1.30pm. According to reports it appears some of the blocks had toppled, crushing the boy.
Daily Telegraph report says, Erwin “was playing among slabs stacked at the rear of the recently built Sydney Tongan Adventist Church while his father and brother Alalate, 17, helped to construct a fence around the property”.
“We heard one of the men call out that someone was trapped,” Alalate told the Telegraph.
“We ran down there and when I saw it was my brother I just started crying.”
It says paramedics and police arrived to find Erwin was unconscious before he was rushed to hospital but died shortly after.
Pastor Sitiveni Fine Teaupa of the Tongan Adventist Community church in a statement said all work on the church hall construction site had been suspended until a thorough investigation was completed.
“I am devastated by this accident. Our whole community is heartbroken. There is nothing more precious to us than our children,” Teaupa said in the statement.
“Please keep the family in your thoughts and prayers. We are all in deep shock.”
Inspector Mick Pearsall said.: “Apparently there was a number of people out there with children, the children were playing as children do, they have wandered over to the materials”
“Unfortunately as kids do they played and didn’t realise the danger in these things, and a number of these blocks has trapped one of the children.”
They found the eight-year-old and immediately began CPR on him before rushing him to Liverpool Hospital.
