Nine killed in fire at Telangana's Srisailam hydroelectric plant

Nagarkurnool (Telangana) [India], August 21 (ANI): Nine persons who were trapped inside the Srisailam Left Bank Hydel Power Station (SLBHP) of the Srisailam reservoir here in Telangana have lost their lives in the fire accident while three injured employees are getting treatment at the hospital, said Telangana State Power Generation Corporation Limited (TSGENCO) on Friday.
The deceased have been identified as TSGENCO Deputy Engineer Srinivas Goud, Assistant Engineers Venkat Rao, Mohan Kumar, Fatima Ujma, plant attendant Rambabu, junior attendant Kiran and Sundar Kumar, and two technicians from Amararaja company Vinesh Kumar and Mahesh Kumar.
"They tried to come out from the escape tunnel, but could not do so due to the dense smoke," TSGENCO said in an official statement.
There were 17 people in the plant at the time of the accident. Eight of them could safely come out, but nine were trapped inside the plant, TSGENCO said.
TSGENCO said that the fire incident occurred at 10:30 pm on Thursday.
"The fire accident occurred in the 900 MW capacity hydro electric power station on the left bank of Srisailam reservoir at 10.30 pm on August 20. The fire broke out in the panels in unit 1 of the power station which led to the accident. The employees tried to put off the fire and save the plant from burning. The employees tried their level best till 12 am last night, but in vain," the statement reads.
"Telangana Power Minister Jagadeeswar Reddy, TS GENCO CMD Devulapalli Prabhakar Rao, GENCO directors and senior employees rushed to the spot and monitored the rescue operations. NDRF, Singareni coal mines technicians and Telangana state fire services rushed to the plant and tried to rescue the trapped ones," it added.
The plant is 1.2 km deep from the earth's surface and there is only one tunnel to go there, TSGENCO said.
"As fire and dense smoke spread, it was not possible to go inside for a very long time. The teams could enter the plant by the afternoon of Friday," it said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Vice president M Venkaiah Naidu have expressed grief at the loss of lives in the incident.
Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao expressed shock over the fire incident.
The Chief Minister also reviewed ongoing relief measures and spoke to the Telangana Power Minister to know about the incident. (ANI)