1. Fall from the ladder. There were two possible causes of his fall: fatal electrical shock or medical pre-condition.
2. Live wire in the room and unauthorised electrical connections. A naked-end cable which probably had been used for other purposes lay on the floor. It had been connected into the same strip connector as the temporary lighting used by the workers to light the room. The unauthorised connections were possible because of unrestricted access to the power supply.
3. Poor handling of cable extensions. Arriving through an opening in the wall, there was one cable to power the temporary lighting and another lying on the floor.
4. No differential circuit breaker to protect against direct exposure to the live voltage. All temporary distributions passed thru only 1 breaker with no differential protection. The temporary/site distribution box, which has differential protection, was removed.
5 Metal ladder without isolation. The victim worked on an A-shape movable metal stepladder with. So, most probably, one of the ladder legs came in contact with the naked-end cable lying on the floor. No protection system cut off the power supply because no real short-circuit occurred; there was just electrical potential at the metal ladder.
6 Substandard housekeeping. Half the room space was occupied by technical equipment such as steel ducting and pieces of scrap cables, and off-cut wires lay on the floor.
7. Inadequate emergency response. Co-workers did not apply immediate first aid to the victim and no ambulance was available.
8 Medical pre-condition. The victim had been ill 2 weeks before the accident but the cause and nature of his illness were not known, as there was no documented sick report. Cable with naked end on the floor.