Fire and Rescue NSW tweeted that firefighters were responding to the fire about 9.50am. A NSW Police spokesman said there were only sketchy details about the blaze. "Police Rescue are on their way. We don't have any reports of people trapped in the crane." The crane jib collapsed onto the UTS building. Credit:Nick Moir Lend Lease confirmed an incident involving one of its cranes had occurred. Hundreds of construction workers at a building across the road have stopped work and are on balconies to get a view of the chaos. A nearby office worker, Matthew McGee-Collett, said there was chaos on Broadway as police blocked traffic and office workers spilled out onto the streets. He said evacuation sirens had been going off. "I actually heard a loud crashing noise and at first I thought a large truck had had some sort of accident, perhaps carrying some sort of load. When I went to the balcony of my office to look I could see the crane on the UTS site nearby had collapsed and there was a fire raging on it," he said.

He said part of the crane collapsed onto a building site on Wattle Street and is "hanging there crumpled against the side of the hoarding" on the site. "It's lucky the crane didn't fall on the street," he said. The crane on fire. Credit:Nick Moir City worker Sean Nunan could clearly see smoke and flames from an office building on Goulburn Street. "The crane was really burning ... then suddenly the boom just gave way - [it] dropped as though the cable had snapped or given way," he said. "The crane continued to burn quite furiously for the next 20 minutes and even now we can still see flames." Onlookers at the site. There were no reports of injuries in the incident. Credit:Nick Moir

A group of TAFE engineering students saw the crane collapse. "One of them said 'mate, a crane's on fire' and we've seen it on fire. Then we went for another look and we saw the crane just come down and it was quite a shock," Matthew Dyson, 19, said. ABC 702 presenter Adam Spencer tweeted this picture of the crane, which caught fire near Broadway. Credit:@adambspencer My mate joked it was going to fall and next thing we've heard this crash, bang, carnage everywhere, people running from every different direction "My mate joked it was going to fall and next thing we've heard this crash, bang, carnage everywhere, people running from every different direction."

The crane boom fell, crashing onto trees and scaffolding, he said. Another student Gus Warman, 30, said he saw a firefighter on the boom. "As the boom was about to come down, there was a fireman 10 metres up the crane, the main shaft. I don't know what happened to him." Mr Warman said the boom appeared to give way in the heat of the fire. "The main station [on the crane] was shaking for a while." Loading Motorists are advised to avoid the area, with Broadway closed between Harris Street and Wattle Street in both directions. Bus services using Broadway near City Road are being diverted, experiencing lengthy delays and also missing stops.





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