By IANS,
Raipur : The bodies of 40 workers, all badly disfigured, were recovered till evening from under the debris of a collapsed chimney at the Bharat Aluminium Company Ltd (Balco) plant in Chhattisgarh as rescuers continued to search for survivors on the third day Friday. Authorities fear several more are still trapped in the debris.
District authorities at Korba, about 250 km north of state capital Raipur, said 40 bodies were pulled out and the casualty figure could rise further once the wreckage of the under-construction chimney at the 1,200 MW coal-fired power plant was cleared.
“The rescue operation is underway with a dozen cranes pressed for clearance work. The rescuers are working cautiously to clear the debris so that survivors, if any, can be pulled out,” Korba district collector Ashok Agrawal told IANS.
He said: “It might take at least another two-three days to remove the rubble under which dozens of workers are suspected to be trapped.” The workers are mostly from Bihar and Jharkhand.
Gannon Dunkerley and Company Ltd (GDCL) had bagged the award for construction of the 275-metre chimney for the power plant.
At the crash site, dozens of workers and women were seen beating their chests and wailing, fearing the worst for their trapped kin and colleagues.
Meanwhile, the opposition Congress sought a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the accident, asserting that the agency needed to “unravel several mysteries behind the tragedy”, including the role of the Balco management.
“Even after three days, the Balco management is not in a position to tell the exact number of workers who were under the ruins of the chimney, and hardly 10 percent of the debris has been cleared till Friday evening,” Dhanendra Sahu, state Congress president, told reporters here.