Only days from its first anniversary, eight workplace safety charges have been laid in the partial collapse of a London apartment building that killed two construction workers and injured five others.

Ontario’s Labour Ministry said Monday charges have been laid under the province’s Occupational Health and Safety Act against two Southwestern Ontario companies that were working on the site and against one person who was not named.

Tillsonburg-based East Elgin Concrete Forming is charged with one count of “failing to provide information, instruction and supervision to a worker to protect the health and safety of a worker,” the ministry said.

In addition, ISpan Systems LP, based in Princeton, faces six charges, including one of “failing to ensure that a building, structure or any part thereof, or any other part of a workplace, whether temporary or permanent, is capable of supporting any loads that may be applied to it in accordance with good engineering practice.”

Part of the four-storey apartment building, known as the Nest on Wonderland, collapsed during construction last Dec. 11, with some of the estimated 40 workers on the site describing how they saw a freshly poured concrete section on the fourth floor give way and smash down onto each floor below to the ground, taking the outer wall of the building with it.

Two concrete workers, John Martens, 21, of Langton and Henry Harder, 26, of Tillsonburg died in the partial collapse of the Teeple Terrace project and five workers were injured. They were employed by East Elgin Concrete Forming.

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