E-Paper
Three charged over deadly India chimney collapse: police
Indian police have charged three local managers of the Britain-based Vedanta mining group in connection with an accident at a power plant that killed 40 workers, police said.
Indian police have charged three local managers of the Britain-based Vedanta mining group in connection with an accident at a power plant that killed 40 workers, police said.
The three were arrested on Monday in Korba, in the state of Chhattisgarh, district superintendent of police Ratan Lal Dangi told AFP by phone.
"We have arrested these three people in connection with the collapse of the chimney. They have been charged with death due to negligence," he said late on Tuesday.
The three were named as general manager-power Viral Mehta, assistant general manager Deepak Narang and project engineer Anup Mohapatra.
On September 23, a partially built chimney at a Vedanta-owned power plant collapsed in bad weather, burying labourers under tonnes of concrete.
Police had arrested one project manager in October and have confined some of the Chinese contractors responsible for the building work to the site of the plant, in Korba, 250 kilometres (155 miles) north of state capital Raipur.
The 178-metre (584-feet) chimney was being built for Vedanta's India subsidiary Balco by Chinese group Shandong Electric Power Construction Corporation (SEPCO).
"Three senior technical staff of SEPCO have also been asked not to leave the premises of Vedanta at Korba till the investigation of the collapsed chimney is complete," said police official Dangi.
