Four dead as Uttar Pradesh power plant chimney collapses

LUCKNOW - At least four people were killed and several others injured when a 540 feet-tall chimney of a 500 MW thermal power station collapsed in Paricha town of Jhansi district in Uttar Pradesh’s Bundelkhand region Monday.

While exact details of the tragedy were still awaited, Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation chairman Navneet Sehgal said: “Construction of the chimney had been completed recently as one of the two 250 MW units was to be commissioned by the first week of June.”

Sehgal told IANS before air-dashing to Paricha: “Three bodies have been retrieved from the debris of the chimney, while labourers are looking for more, just in case some workers are buried under it.”

He, however, declined to comment on the cause of the mishap. “The district magistrate is on the spot and I am also rushing there by a state aircraft, so it would be premature to assign any reason behind the tragedy.”

While admitting that the collapse of the chimney was bound to delay the commissioning of the thermal power plant, Sehgal claimed: “The accident has not affected the working of the two old power generating units of 210 MW each in Paricha.”

The chimney for the new unit in the state-owned plant was built by National Building Construction Corporation (NBCC), the official said.