25.09.2013

How many people does it take…

A reader in Myanmar /Burma has sent us a photograph of what looks like an illustration for the old joke ‘how many people does it take to change a light bulb?’

Taken at Shwedagon Pagoda - also known as the Great Dragon or Golden Pagoda - in Yongon, Myanmar, the picture shows a man changing the bulb of a street light. He is working at a height of between eight and 10 metres, using a tower cobbled together from a number of small-tube walk-through system scaffold frames, while six men act as counterweight compensating for the absence of outriggers and serve as a human chain to pass up the large bulbs.
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How many Myanmarese people does it take to change a light bulb?

The platform placed on the top frame, comprises a single platform board, and it seems churlish to mention guardrails or toe-boards. The chances of this lot collapsing around these jokers is quite high, and the climb up on those frames would not have been the safest.

Well and truly one for our Death Wish series