Three Chinese engineers with China-based Shandong Electric Power Construction Corporation (Sepco) were arrested today in connection with last September’s chimney collapse in the power plant of Vedanta-controlled Bharat Aluminium Company (Balco) at Korba, 225 km from here.
The collapse had killed 41 workers, the worst industrial accident in the history of Chattisgarh. Sepco got the contract for setting up the 1,200-Mw unit and had given the job of building the chimney to Gannon Dunkerley and Company Ltd (GDCL).
Earlier, the police had arrested three Balco officials and Manoj Sharma, project manager of GDCL, after their probe. The Balco officials are a Vice-President and the power project in-charge, Viral Mehta, Assistant General Manager (Project) Deepak Narang and trainee engineer Anoop Mahapatra. The four officials are in jail, after their bail pleas were rejected by a court.
Arrested today were the Chinese company’s project in charge, Woo Chunan, and engineers O Lou and Wan Qung, district police superintendent Ratanlal Dangi told Business Standard. The three were produced before a magistrate, Sarojnand Das, who rejected their bail plea and sent them to judicial custody, Dangi added.