Death Toll at Indian Power Plant Chimney Collapse Rises to 46
Dozens are feared dead after a 330-foot chimney under construction at a 1,200-MW coal-fired power plant collapsed last week in India’s eastern state of Chhattisgarh. Teams have so far retrieved 46 bodies from the debris.
Around 300 workers were reportedly working on the chimney in Korba district, 135 miles northeast of the state’s capital, Raipur. The project was part of an expansion of an aluminum smelter by construction company Gannon Dunkerley & Co. (GDCL) for Vedanta Resources subsidiary Bharat Aluminum Co. (BALCO).
The chimney had been designed to tower almost 900 feet (275 meters), but it collapsed after reaching a height of 330 feet (100 meters), police said. In a statement following the accident on Sept. 23, BALCO CEO Gunjan Gupta said that heavy rains and lightening at Korba over several days were a “probable reason” for the accident, though he added that an inquiry would shed more light on the details.
On Friday, meanwhile, the Indian media reported widely that police were questioning workers employed by Chinese firm Shandong Electric Power Construction Corp., the company that had been awarded the engineering, procurement, and construction contract for the project. Shandong had reportedly outsourced the chimney construction work to Delhi-based GDCL.
The Times of India said the firm’s employees were fleeing Korba, “fearing the ire of the locals in the wake of the rising toll.” The newspaper also reported that immigration authorities had been instructed not to allow 89 Chinese engineers and other workers to leave the country because their testimony would be needed in a probe into the incident.
Other media sources suggested that pressure to complete massive industrial projects on schedule could be a reason some companies were ignoring safety standards. The Economic Times pointed out that the accident was the second to happen at a construction site within two months. Part of a flyover being built for Delhi Metro collapsed in July, killing five workers. It also said, however, that GDLC had been implicated in a bridge collapse in Hyderabad two years ago.
India is struggling to keep up with the frenzied pace at which its economy is growing. The country faces peak demand shortages of up to 12%, but the country’s power sector—dominated by government entities—is failing to meet targets to increase on-grid power capacity by nearly 78.7 GW by the end of its 11th plan (2007–2012). To ensure an uninterrupted supply of power, more and more companies from energy-intensive industries are setting up generating units—known as captive power plants—for their own uses.
BALCO opted for the Korba aluminum smelter expansion in 2007, even though it owns another 270-MW captive power plant and Korba district houses several of India’s largest coal-fired power plants—including the federally owned 2,100-MW Korba Super Thermal Power station.
Several other power plants are expected to be built in the region by private power producers and the state electricity board. Chhattisgarh State has been regarded as the most suitable location in India for power projects because of its large coal reserves and abundant water supply.
Because BHEL, the state-owned engineering and manufacturing company—and the nation’s only large-scale equipment manufacturing company, is completely overwhelmed with orders through 2012, Indian companies are contracting foreign, mostly Chinese, firms to provide these services.
Sources: The Times of India, The Economic Times, POWER