No required safety devices were in a collapsed trench that killed three workers Friday morning at the Hattiesburg-Forrest County Industrial Park, Forrest County Coroner Butch Benedict said.
Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration officials will lead the investigation into the accident. The investigation could take up to six months, said Clyde Payne, area director for the Jackson-area office of OSHA.
Subcontractor American Air Specialists employed the men, said Robert Pickering, Hattiesburg Fire Department battalion chief. Company officials issued no comment.
Officials say the workers were connecting sewer lines at the new Sam's Club distribution center under construction around 10:30 a.m. when the cave-in occurred.
The men were buried under about eight feet of dirt and wet clay, city officials said.
The Hattiesburg Fire Department, Hattiesburg Police Department, Hattiesburg Public Works Department, Forrest County Emergency Services and a joint crime scene investigative unit all responded.
The crime scene unit was there to take photographs and document the incident.
The victims suffocated and probably died in a "short period of time," said John Brown, city of Hattiesburg spokesman. All three men died from asphyxiation, Benedict said.
The clay wall of the trench had to be reinforced before the bodies could be removed. Public works crews used a backhoe and firefighters used planks of plywood to hold the dirt and clay in place. All three bodies were retrieved by about 1 p.m.
Pickering said American Air Specialists would have been responsible for safety precautions at the site. He did not know what, if any, precautions, were taken.
Saddle Creek Corp., based in Lakeland, Fla., owns the property where the distribution center is being built. The company specializes in distribution and logistics and will operate the facility.
"Obviously, we are as stunned and horrified as everyone in Hattiesburg," said Cliff Otto, president of Saddle Creek.
Angie Godwin, president of the Area Development Partnership, said the site had been a scene of great celebration recently during the distribution center's ground breaking.
This is the second collapse in the Pine Belt this month. On March 13, a construction accident in Lamar County sent a 38-year-old Purvis man to Forrest General Hospital, Lamar County Sheriff Danny Rigel said in a previous report.
Rigel said several construction workers had been in a ditch building a form to pour concrete on Lois Lane off Sandy Run Road, when a wall of the ditch collapsed.
