Sandu* checked his watch.
asserted
Sandu → check → watch
He was winding down the last 15 minutes of his shift at a vast Google datacentre site in Saint-Ghislain, Belgium, in March, when the call came in.
asserted
call → wind → March
The 34-year-old electrical tester had already worked almost 10 hours, but says such last-minute jobs were normal: “I had no choice.
asserted
I → work → choice
People have been fired after saying no.”
asserted
People → fire → no
The task was one Sandu had done many times before and involved a series of tests measuring the safety and integrity of the electrical wiring.
asserted
Sandu → do → wiring
A protective suit was locked away in an equipment room.
asserted
suit → lock → room
The round trip would have added another 15 minutes to the job, he says, and people were waiting, so he decided not to retrieve the suit.
asserted
he → add → suit
Once in the voltage room, Sandu says the managers confirmed the lines had been de-energised.
asserted
lines → say → room
In the first round, everything went as planned.
asserted
everything → go → round
Then, on the second test, while holding insulated tongs, he linked the cables.
asserted
he → hold → cables
In milliseconds, 400 volts and 12,000 amps hit Sandu’s face and across the right side of his body.
asserted
volts → hit → body
“I went completely blind,” he says.
asserted
he → go → ?
When doctors received him in the Grand Hôpital de Charleroi, he says he was placed in an induced coma for five days.
asserted
he → receive → days
Hospital records seen by the Guardian and Investigate Europe show that the arc flash electrocution had burned 12% of Sandu’s body, with second-degree burns to the face and neck, as well as third-degree burns across his right shoulder and fingers.
asserted
electrocution → see → shoulder
When Sandu woke from surgery in the intensive care unit a week later, his wife was at his bedside.
asserted
wife → wake → bedside
He says his entire body felt like a “white-hot blister …
asserted
body → say → blister
The human heart cannot comprehend it.”
asserted
heart → comprehend → it
Sandu says the regional director of Google, along with a representative from Dornan Engineering, an Irish company that oversaw his contractor, and his recruiter, came to visit.
asserted
that → say → contractor
While he lay bandaged in the hospital bed, he says the Google director told him he was lucky to be alive.
asserted
he → lie → him
To date, no company or contractor appears to have been found liable for the accident.
asserted
company → appear → accident
The local labour inspectorate closed its investigation in late October and found no wrongdoing.
asserted
inspectorate → close → wrongdoing
A spokesperson for Dornan Engineering said it was “committed to maintaining safe working conditions, complying with applicable labour laws and continually learning to help prevent incidents like this from happening again”.
asserted
it → say → this
Sandu’s electrocution appears brutal and harrowing, but far from unique, according to a five-month investigation by Investigate Europe and the Guardian into conditions for migrant workers on datacentre sites across Sweden, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands.
uncertain
electrocution → appear → Sweden
Europe is in the midst of a datacentre boom, the largest infrastructure surge the continent has seen in decades, with more than 2,300 datacentres rapidly altering the physical and energy landscape of Europe (at least 500 of them in the UK) and hundreds more under construction.
asserted
datacentres → see → construction
But unions say the push for tech sovereignty in Europe is becoming increasingly reliant on the exploitation of migrant workers.
asserted
push → say → workers
In dozens of interviews we found evidence of debilitating injuries, squalid living conditions, an unreported infectious outbreak, unpaid wages and exploitative employment practices.
asserted
we → find → injuries
In the UK, a general contractor died while working on a datacentre site last year, while another fatality was reported in 2024 at an electrical substation being built for a Microsoft datacentre.
asserted
fatality → die → datacentre
Serious accidents have also been recorded this year at projects in Italy, Sweden, Norway and Belgium, and exploitative labour practices have been found at projects around the world, including in Brazil.
asserted
practices → record → Brazil
On the outskirts of Gävle, a city two hours north of Stockholm, past timber-framed cottages and dense pine forests, lies a smooth road leading to one such site.
asserted
road → frame → site
The remote clearing is part of a 130-hectare, €3bn expansion plan begun in June 2024 to scale up Microsoft’s AI datacentre infrastructure.
asserted
clearing → begin → infrastructure
One subcontractor at the site is the Irish-owned construction company BenBau.
asserted
subcontractor → own → site
It is among 148 firms working under Collen Construction at the Gävle site, including 28 direct subcontractors.
asserted
It → work → subcontractors
They showed evidence of crowded living quarters – 24 people to a kitchen, 14 men to a single bathroom – and say they have reported vermin infestations, broken ventilation systems and lack of heating during the sub-zero Swedish winters, but the problems remain.
asserted
problems → show → winters
Such conditions can make the transmission of disease more likely.
asserted
transmission → make → disease
In February this year, one Romanian worker tested positive for active tuberculosis, medical records show.
asserted
records → test → tuberculosis
Shortly after, others living in the same shared housing showed similar symptoms.
asserted
others → live → symptoms
BenBau initially informed only a few men who shared close quarters with the infected worker and then told the men that testing was optional, according to workers.
uncertain
testing → inform → workers
After the first worker who contracted the disease had left for hospital, Benbau moved another worker into his bedroom.
asserted
Benbau → contract → bedroom
Freedom of information requests made to Sweden’s national work authorities and its Public Health Agency say no outbreak had been reported.
asserted
outbreak → make → authorities
The living and working conditions form only part of the story.
asserted
conditions → form → story
…and 23 more, not listed.
The Aporia
