HYDERABAD: Nine employees, seven of TS Genco and two of a private battery company, were charred to death in a major fire that broke out in the underground hydro-electric power station on the left bank of the Krishna river at Srisailam reservoir late on Thursday night.
Three other Genco employees who were injured in the mishap are undergoing treatment at the Genco hospital located near the plant.
All the nine employees died while fighting the fire as it spread like a conflagration in the interior of the entire plant. They were identified as Divisional Engineer (DE) Srinivas Goud, assistant engineers (AEs) Venkat Rao, Mohan Kumar, Fatima and Sundar, plant attendant Rambabu, junior attendant Kiran and employees of Amara Raja Batteries Limited (ARBL) Vinesh Kumar and Mahesh Kumar. The State government ordered a CID inquiry into the incident by Additional IG Govind Singh.
Mourning the deaths, President Ramnath Kovind said he was pained by the loss of lives. “In this hour of grief, my thoughts are with the bereaved families,” he said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a tweet said: “Fire at the Srisailam hydroelectric plant is deeply unfortunate. My thoughts are with the bereaved families.
I hope those injured recovers at the earliest.” According to official sources, the cause of the fire was a short circuit in an auxiliary voltage transformer of the fourth unit of the power station. “It appears the fire had started in one of the panels, near the units 4, 5 and 6,” one officer said.
“When the fire broke out at 10.30 pm on Thursday, 17 employees were working in the power station. Eight of them came out safe but nine were trapped inside as they were trying to put out the fire,” another source said.“A few employees, using fire extinguishers tried to put out the fire but it was too powerful to be tamed. It was rising and spreading fast with a deafening noise. The employees sacrificed their lives to save their beloved plant,” a senior official said, adding: “We have information that the employees, who were in the plant, tried hard to save the plant till the last moment.”
Bodies found on all 5 floors of power plant
The employees, after realising that they would not be able to tame the flames, tried to get out of the inferno but it was too late by then. “The footwear that lay scattered all over bears testimony to how hard they tried to save themselves after a valiant effort to save the plant,” the officer said. “The experience was probably nightmarish for them as they could not do anything as smoke and flames closed in on them.”
As the demon of death chased them, they seemed to have run in every which way. Their bodies were found on all the five floors of the plant, which suggested that they tried to save themselves by trying to reach the top floor, but were probably blinded by smoke and suffered difficulty in breathing as they were forced to breath in only smoke.
When they realised that they could not put out the fire, they wanted to come out through the two escape tunnels but could not as they too were filled with smoke.
The SCCL, NDRF and CISF rescue teams which were pressed into service in the early morning recovered the bodies after 8 hours of efforts.
The plant was located 1.2 km beneath the surface and there was only one tunnel to go inside but the teams found it difficult to go inside as smoke stood like a wall, preventing them from entering the tunnel.
Only by afternoon, they managed to go inside but what greeted them was the bodies laying in different floors in grotesque angles. Immediately after the accident, Energy Minister G Jagadish Reddy and TS Genco and Transco Chairman Devulpalli Prabhakar Rao rushed to the spot and supervised the operations. The CM was in touch with them over phone, monitoring the operations.
Short circuit caused fire
The preliminary assessment by the officials of TS Genco found that a short circuit caused the
fire. “We feel that a short circuit triggered the fire. But, we are yet to ascertain the reason behind the short circuit,” a top official said
Plant turns into inferno
The search for the victims and bringing out the bodies turned out to be a tough task for the rescue teams as the power station turned into an underground inferno, billowing thick and toxic smoke
KCR orders CID probe, announces ex gratia to kin of deceased
The State government ordered a CID probe into the fire accident. “The reasons for the fire accident should be brought to light,” Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said, while mourning the death of the employees.
He also announced `50 lakh ex gratia to the kin of Divisional Engineer Srinivasa Goud and `25 lakh to kin of others who perished in the fire. He also offered a job to one member of the family of each of the Genco employee who died in the fire.