Ongoing work at a construction site in downtown Vancouver has been stopped and an investigation is underway after a facade fell off a church building onto scaffolding, sending three workers to a hospital.

Samantha Newlove, a traffic control worker, said the incident happened on Wednesday as concrete was being pumped into a chimney on the building, which burst, toppled over and pushed over a scaffolding tower, pinning workers underneath.

“It was pretty traumatizing watching it all tumble over and hearing all the guys screaming for help and stuff like that,” she said. “It’s not something I wanted to deal with today.”

Assistant fire chief Jarret Gray with Vancouver Fire Rescue Services was on site after the incident and said firefighters had to pull rubble off one of the workers and use a crane to lower the injured workers off the building.

The workers had non-life-threatening injuries, he said, and the next step is a WorkSafeBC investigation.

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