'100 feared dead' in Indian chimney collapse

Thursday, September 24, 2009 RAIPUR: Rescuers searched desperately for survivors Thursday in the rubble of a giant chimney that collapsed in central India, with a top union official saying more than 100 workers were feared dead.Labourers had completed 100 meters (330 feet) of the planned 275-metre chimney when the entire structure came crashing down in bad weather on Wednesday.Officials said 20 bodies had been recovered and dozens more were believed to be buried under a vast pile of brick and stone at the site in Korba, 200 kilometres (124 miles) from Raipur, the state capital of Chhattisgarh."I expect the number of dead will cross 100," said Vinod Kumar Sharma, general secretary of the workers' union at aluminium group Balco, a subsidiary of London-listed Vedanta, which was building the chimney for a power plant.Sharma said his estimate was based on testimony from union members near the scene of the accident, who said workers were sheltering from heavy rain in and around the structure when it collapsed at about 3:45 pm (1015 GMT)."Only nine people who are in hospital are alive. The others are dead," he said. "It is a major tragedy. It is very sad for the poor families."Police and government officials said they were having difficulties establishing exactly how many people were buried because the company has been unable to say how many contractors were working on the site.Sharma said an average shift would have seen 55-70 people working directly on the chimney, with dozens more on the ground."The chance of finding survivors is getting very bleak," police officer Ratanlal Dangi said by phone from the site."We are facing great difficulty in removing the concrete. Once the debris is removed, we will be able to rescue people or find bodies."Deadly construction site accidents are relatively common in India, where health and safety rules are routinely flouted, but a builders' labour group said this incident was bad, even by Indian standards."It is one of the worst accidents in India's recent construction history," Rajeev Sharma, South Asia head of Building and Wood Workers' International, told AFP.K.C. Gupta, director general of the National Safety Council of India, said the disaster was the latest in a string of fatal accidents in the construction sector.They include the collapse of a partially built bridge on the flagship Delhi Metro project that killed five in July and an accident during the construction of a flyover in the southern city of Hyderabad.No accurate up-to-date figures exist for the number of occupational accidents and deaths in India, but the UN's International Labour Organisation has estimated that 50,000 people die here each year from work-related causes.A spokesman for Balco, short for Bharat Aluminium Co., said 150 rescuers had been pressed into action and 10 heavy earth-moving machines were also helping to clear debris at the site in Korba."A probable reason for the incident appears to be the excessive rains and lightning," said a statement from Vedanta Resources, which owns 51-percent of Balco.The Indian government holds the remaining 49 percent."The exact cause for this will however be ascertained only after a detailed investigation is concluded," added Vedanta, shares in which are listed on the London Stock Exchange.Balco has been expanding its aluminium operations in the mineral-rich state, which is in the grip of a Maoist insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives since the late 1960s.Police Wednesday said there was no indication of terrorist involvement in the chimney collapse.