Amazon is facing questions concerning their health and safety policies at a warehouse in Illinois after six workers died when the building was destroyed by a tornado.
According to Amazon, the team “worked quickly” in response to the tornado. The roof had collapsed as the storm hit the warehouse on Friday.
Kelly Nantel, an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement the company is “deeply saddened” by the deaths.
Questions have been raised over whether there was adequate shelter available, if the workers were advised to go there immediately and whether the shifts should have gone ahead at all given the warnings of severe weather.
The Edwardsville site received tornado warnings between 20:06 and 20:16 local time before the tornado struck the building at 20:27, Amazon said in a statement when contacted by the BBC, with events “happening incredibly fast”.
The company said that the team worked “incredibly quickly” to ensure as many employees and partners could reach the “shelter in place” site.
Amazon said following a tornado warning company procedure was for all employees to be “notified and directed to move to a designated and marked shelter in place location”.
The majority of the team had taken shelter at “the primary designated location”, the firm said, but a small group had taken shelter in a part of the building that was hit by the tornado. “This is where most of the tragic loss of life occurred,” Amazon said.
A sister of a victim said that she understood from the conversation between her brother and her parents that he and the other workers were not immediately told to shelter after the first warning siren sounded.
She posted a comment on Facebook calling for publicity around the firm’s approach to health and safety.
“Everyone knows that all Amazon cares about is productivity,” she wrote. She said she didn’t believe her brother would have died if the company “got them [the employees] to safety after the storm started to get bad and took it seriously”.
“No-one would have been frantically getting to the shelter last minute and my brother wouldn’t have had to help people get to the shelter and put his life at risk,” she wrote.
“I want them to answer for this, I want this to be a starting point of places taking the lives of their employees seriously and treating them as more than a number.”
On Monday, US Department of Labor said an investigation into the building collapse has been opened by the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Amazon said it was donating $1m to the Edwardsville Community Foundation as well as providing relief supplies including transport, food and water.
Sources: BBC, MSN
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