Raipur, Sep 26 (Inditop.com) Dozens of Chinese nationals, mostly engineers, working at Bharat Aluminium Company Ltd (Balco) in Chhattisgarh’s Korba town are reported to have fled fearing attacks by locals after a 100-metre under-construction chimney at the plant collapsed Wednesday, trapping many workers. So far, 40 mutilated bodies have been recovered.
The Chinese were employed in Korba by Shandong Electric Power Construction Corporation (SEPCO), that had bagged the contract by aluminium major Balco to construct two power plants of 600 MW each. Sterlite Industries (India) Ltd, part of the mining group Vedanta Resources Plc, holds 51 percent stake in Balco and the remaining 49 percent is owned by the Indian government.
Later, SEPCO assigned to Gannon Dunkerley and Company Ltd (GDCL) the task of constructing a 275-metre-high chimney for the power plant.
“Chinese nationals numbering around 70-80 have left Korba town amid the rising death toll. The SEPCO office is found locked,” top sources in the Korba district administration told Inditop.
The under-construction chimney collapsed amid heavy rain and lightning Wednesday, trapping many workers underneath. More than 75 percent of the rubble is yet to be cleared. Police say the death toll could rise as more people are feared trapped underneath.
The district administration source told Inditop that police have alerted Mana airport authorities in Raipur to not allow any employees of SEPCO to leave Chhattisgarh as their help would be needed in a judicial probe ordered by the state government into the chimney crash.
Sources at police headquarters here informed that several Chinese who fled Korba have been kept at Bilaspur town, some 125 km from Korba.
Meanwhile, six different teams of rescuers are still working at the collapsed chimney site to pull out survivors, if any, from the rubble.
Korba district Superintendent of Police Ratanlal Dangi said the death count would rise as dozens of workers are still missing since the chimney crash.
Police say that it could take another 2-3 days to clear the debris.
