The 2009 Korba chimney collapse occurred in the town of Korba

Korba, Chhattisgarh

Korba is a city and an industrial area in Korba District in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh.Korba is the power capital of the newly formed state Chhattisgarh. The district comes under Bilaspur division and is inhabited mainly by tribals including the protected tribe Korwas...

 in the Indian state

States and territories of India

India is a federal union of states comprising twenty-eight states and seven union territories. The states and territories are further subdivided into districts and so on.-List of states and territories:...

 of Chhattisgarh

Chhattisgarh

Chhattisgarh is a state in Central India, formed when the 16 Chhattisgarhi-speaking South-Eastern districts of Madhya Pradesh gained separate statehood on 1 November 2000....

 on 23 September 2009. It was under construction by Gannon Dunkerley & Company Limited (GDCL) for Shandong Electric Power Construction Corporation (Sepco), who themselves were under contract for the Bharat Aluminium Co Ltd

Bharat Aluminium Company

Bharat Aluminium Company Ltd. is an Indian aluminium company. It was in the public sector until 2001, when it was taken over by Vedanta Resources, a company which is listed on the London Stock Exchange-History:...

 (BALCO). Construction had reached 240 m (787.4 ft) when the chimney collapsed on top of more than 100 workers who had been taking shelter from a thunderstorm. At least 45 deaths were recorded.

Incident and rescue

Plans specify a 275 metres (902.2 ft) chimney for the construction of a thermal power plant by Balco, which is owned by Vedanta Resources

Vedanta Resources

Vedanta Resources plc is a global mining and metals company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the largest mining and non-ferrous metals company in India and also has mining operations in Australia and Zambia. Its main products are copper, zinc, aluminium, lead and iron ore...

. The incident happened during extreme weather conditions involving lightning and torrential rainfall. Workers sought shelter from the rain in a nearby store room, and a lightning strike at approximately 16:00 brought the chimney down on top of them.<

A rescue attempt was initiated following the collapse. Ongoing rain obstructed efforts to retrieve the trapped workers. At least seven of the wounded were hospitalised. An employee was allegedly thrashed to death as well; his corpse was located near the scene. It was originally thought he had fallen from the chimney, but wounds indicate he was attacked.

Reaction

An investigation is ongoing to determine the cause of the collapse. Balco initially did not discussed the incident at length, stating only that "[t]here is an accident and some people are injured"; claiming to be too busy with the rescue effort to make a longer statement. The state government believes that Balco had been "overlooking security aspects". District superintendent of police, Ratanlal Dangi, described it as "a massive accident". Rs

Indian rupee

The Indian rupee is the official currency of the Republic of India. The issuance of the currency is controlled by the Reserve Bank of India....

.100,000 (US$2084) in compensation will be granted to relatives of each of the dead.

In November 2008, the project manager from GDCL was arrested, as well as three officials from Vedanta Resources which manages Balco. Later the National Institute of Technology (NIT) Raipur observed that the materials were of substandard quality and technically faulty in design. NIT also concluded that there was improper water curing and that soil at the site was not up to code. Additionally, supervision and monitoring was found to be negligent. On January 11, 2010, as a result of these findings, three senior officials of Sepco, the Chinese company contracted to build the chimney, were arrested and are being held without bail.

External links

• Official site of Bharat Aluminium Co Ltd
  Bharat Aluminium Company
  Bharat Aluminium Company Ltd. is an Indian aluminium company. It was in the public sector until 2001, when it was taken over by Vedanta Resources, a company which is listed on the London Stock Exchange-History:...