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This number may mean nothing without context. At least 6,500 migrant workers have died, but how many exactly occurred due to the construction of new buildings f

This number may mean nothing without context. At least 6,500 migrant workers have died, but how many exactly occurred due to the construction of new buildings for the World Cup? The title of this post isn’t really honest. It says “at least 6,500 deaths constructing stadia for the World Cup” but the Guardian article is titled “6,500 migrant workers have died in Qatar since World Cup awarded”. And yes, I’m aware of migrant abuse in Qatar and other relatively wealthy Middle Eastern countries…just want to set the facts straight

derriz 5y ago
That's a fair call regarding the title I used. I didn't intend it to be misleading - I was being sloppy as I found the number absolutely shocking. Perhaps something like "At least 6,500 construction deaths in Qatar since winning the bid to host the World Cup" would be fairer.
- FDSGSG 5y ago
  These are not construction deaths. The article does not claim that these were construction deaths. That's something you invented in your head. This number represents all-cause mortality.
rand49an 5y ago
In comparable projects, the London Olympics in 2012 had 0 construction deaths associated and in more recent years, even the highest recorded count was 74 in Sochi, Russia.
- Spare_account 5y ago
  You're perpetuating the mistake in the title. As I understand the GP, the point is that during the construction of the any sporting facilities, some workers will have died but it won't have been directly related to the work they did. In Qatar, that number is >6500. In the UK, we don't know the number.
  - rosndo 5y ago
    Yes we do. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/weekly-all-cause-mortality-surveillance-2021-to-2022 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/weekly-all-cause-mo... https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26595089/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26595089/ Same statistics are available in the UK, although immigrant-specific numbers aren’t updated on a weekly basis.
- tluyben2 5y ago
  Yeah, I was going to say; any construction deaths are frontpage news here. 6500 for a country the size of a shoe is insane, directly related to the the worldcup or not.
  - FDSGSG 5y ago
    These aren't construction deaths. This number includes all causes of death for all 2+ million immigrant workers in Qatar.
- adwww 5y ago
  Even 74 in Sochi sounds mind blowing. I can't imagine that many people dying on an engineering project anywhere else in Europe, unless perhaps there was a major incident like a tunnel collapse. But that would be headline news around the world.
  - orra 5y ago
    It was rightly newsworthy, and investigated, that one person died during the construction of the Queensferry Crossing.
ejb999 5y ago
I agree - there is probably a story here, but the writer didn't do a very good job connecting the dots, correlation is not causation, lazy journalism at its worst. How is this for a headline? "5,333 US workers died in the 12 months following Qatar withdrawing from OPEC" or "5,333 US Workers died in the 12 months following Austria legalizing same sex marriage" source: https://www.onthisday.com/events/date/2019/january https://www.onthisday.com/events/date/2019/january https://www.osha.gov/data/commonstats https://www.osha.gov/data/commonstats
guillermin 5y ago
I do believe that fact-checking and identifying clickbait is important, but in this case I think you are nitpicking with no cause and adding no substance to the discussion. The article mentions a sum of 6,751 deaths not including several countries (Philippines and Kenya), so "at least 6,500" is correct. The article also says "While death records are not categorised by occupation or place of work, it is likely many workers who have died were employed on these World Cup infrastructure projects", so the "constructing stadia for the World Cup", although a bit loosely, is also true. I don't get what you were trying to open our eyes to with your comment. Even if only 1,000 workers were confirmed to be deaths directly related to building stadia it is just as horrible and needs to be known.
- ejb999 5y ago
  "Even if only 1,000 workers were confirmed to be deaths"... thats the problem, you are just guessing, yes 1000 deaths on a construction project would be an awful lot - but the article makes zero claims about how many people died from the heat, from heart diseases from covid or even from the covid vaccine, or from the actual project - which is the implied cause, without citing any data - just listing a high number of deaths that happened in a population of people, after some other event occurred, means less than nothing. Thats not 'nitpicking', that pointing out glaring laziness on the part of the author to imply a cause and effect, and provide ZERO data to back it up.

derriz 5y ago

That's a fair call regarding the title I used. I didn't intend it to be misleading - I was being sloppy as I found the number absolutely shocking. Perhaps something like "At least 6,500 construction deaths in Qatar since winning the bid to host the World Cup" would be fairer.

FDSGSG 5y ago
These are not construction deaths. The article does not claim that these were construction deaths. That's something you invented in your head. This number represents all-cause mortality.

rand49an 5y ago

In comparable projects, the London Olympics in 2012 had 0 construction deaths associated and in more recent years, even the highest recorded count was 74 in Sochi, Russia.

Spare_account 5y ago
You're perpetuating the mistake in the title. As I understand the GP, the point is that during the construction of the any sporting facilities, some workers will have died but it won't have been directly related to the work they did. In Qatar, that number is >6500. In the UK, we don't know the number.
- rosndo 5y ago
  Yes we do. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/weekly-all-cause-mortality-surveillance-2021-to-2022 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/weekly-all-cause-mo... https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26595089/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26595089/ Same statistics are available in the UK, although immigrant-specific numbers aren’t updated on a weekly basis.
tluyben2 5y ago
Yeah, I was going to say; any construction deaths are frontpage news here. 6500 for a country the size of a shoe is insane, directly related to the the worldcup or not.
- FDSGSG 5y ago
  These aren't construction deaths. This number includes all causes of death for all 2+ million immigrant workers in Qatar.
adwww 5y ago
Even 74 in Sochi sounds mind blowing. I can't imagine that many people dying on an engineering project anywhere else in Europe, unless perhaps there was a major incident like a tunnel collapse. But that would be headline news around the world.
- orra 5y ago
  It was rightly newsworthy, and investigated, that one person died during the construction of the Queensferry Crossing.

ejb999 5y ago

I agree - there is probably a story here, but the writer didn't do a very good job connecting the dots, correlation is not causation, lazy journalism at its worst. How is this for a headline? "5,333 US workers died in the 12 months following Qatar withdrawing from OPEC" or "5,333 US Workers died in the 12 months following Austria legalizing same sex marriage" source: https://www.onthisday.com/events/date/2019/january https://www.onthisday.com/events/date/2019/january https://www.osha.gov/data/commonstats https://www.osha.gov/data/commonstats

guillermin 5y ago

I do believe that fact-checking and identifying clickbait is important, but in this case I think you are nitpicking with no cause and adding no substance to the discussion. The article mentions a sum of 6,751 deaths not including several countries (Philippines and Kenya), so "at least 6,500" is correct. The article also says "While death records are not categorised by occupation or place of work, it is likely many workers who have died were employed on these World Cup infrastructure projects", so the "constructing stadia for the World Cup", although a bit loosely, is also true. I don't get what you were trying to open our eyes to with your comment. Even if only 1,000 workers were confirmed to be deaths directly related to building stadia it is just as horrible and needs to be known.

ejb999 5y ago
"Even if only 1,000 workers were confirmed to be deaths"... thats the problem, you are just guessing, yes 1000 deaths on a construction project would be an awful lot - but the article makes zero claims about how many people died from the heat, from heart diseases from covid or even from the covid vaccine, or from the actual project - which is the implied cause, without citing any data - just listing a high number of deaths that happened in a population of people, after some other event occurred, means less than nothing. Thats not 'nitpicking', that pointing out glaring laziness on the part of the author to imply a cause and effect, and provide ZERO data to back it up.