Amazonia Arena construction to re-start after worker death

SÃO PAULO (Reuters) - A Brazilian judge gave the green light to restart work on the roof of the Amazonia Arena Wednesday, four days after construction ground to a halt when a worker fell to his death.

Authorities said they were satisfied that builders Andrade Gutierrez had complied with all the safety requirements and granted them permission to restart fitting the roof of the 44,000-seat stadium.

A 22-year old worker fell almost 35 metres (around 115 feet) to his death in the early hours of Saturday morning while working on the roof.

He was the fifth construction worker to die while building the 12 stadiums that will be used in the Brazil World Cup next year, and the third to perish in less than a month. Two workers died when a crane collapsed at the Itaquera stadium in Sao Paulo on November 27.

The decision was good news for host city Manaus but the delivery of the stadium that will host the England-Italy match and three other first round games is still likely to be late.

The ground was to have been handed over by the end of December but it will now only be ready in 2014.

"Now we are going to discuss re-doing the chronogram and rescheduling what needs to be done with Andrade Gutierrez and that way we can determine new delivery dates," said Miguel Capobiango Neto, the local official coordinating the work.

(Writing by Andrew Downie; Editing by Ian Ransom)