The arm of a large crane collapsed onto the maternity clinic of the main hospital in Volos, eastern Greece, yesterday lunchtime, provoking panic among staff and patients but causing no injuries.

Some 40 pregnant women had been waiting for checkups outside the clinic when the crane fell. Some of them panicked but none suffered any adverse effects, hospital staff said. The director of the maternity clinic was said to be in shock.

The local fire service was summoned to remove the fallen piece of crane.

According to the hospital’s director, Maria Karra, the firm in charge of the crane had not set it up in the way authorities in charge of the hospital’s renovation had directed. The crane operators have claimed the incident was provoked by subsidence of the ground under the crane.