Death toll in blast at NTPC’s Rae Bareli plant rises to 30

Lucknow, November 2

The death toll in the massive explosion that ripped a boiler at the state-run power giant NTPC’s Unchahar plant in Uttar Pradesh’s Rae Bareli district on Wednesday has risen to 30, state Chief Secretary Rajive said on Thursday.
A rescue and relief operation is being carried out by a National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF) team. Officials fear that the number of casualties may go up once the blades of the boiler are cut.

More than 200 persons were injured in the explosion that rocked the plant, the officials said, adding that three critically injured were airlifted to Delhi, while six were shifted to Civil Hospital, Lucknow.Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and Union Minister of State for Power R K Singh visited the accident site.

Taking a break from his Gujarat election tour, Rahul visited the district hospital and NTPC premises and enquired about the incident from officers present.

He was accompanied by senior party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad and Congress state president Raj Babbar.

“How many workers were working there?” he was heard asking officers at the Unchahar unit of NTPC.

“People are saying that it (the plant unit) was run early (before schedule). It should not have been run that way. We will demand a probe,” Rahul told reporters.

Azad demanded a high-level probe by an outside agency to bring out the fact.

Rahul also came face to face with Singh during his NTPC visit.

When asked about the incident, Singh said there could be two issues—design or maintenance. “We are looking into both the aspects,” he said.

On charges that the plant unit was commissioned ahead of time, he said it was not done in haste.

“The work was completed before March and after two-three months of trial, it was commissioned,” he said.

Singh also said the compensation by NTPC had been raised from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 20 lakh to the next of kin of the deceased.

Deputy CM Dinesh Sharma and UP Power Minister Srikant Sharma also visited Raebareli and met the injured.

Gandhi took a break from his ongoing ‘Navsarjan Yatra’ in poll-bound Gujarat and rushed to Rae Bareli, his mother Sonia Gandhi’s Lok Sabha constituency, to meet the families of victims of the explosion.

The Congress president has expressed shock at the “terrible tragedy”.

Azad said she has been discharged from hospital day before yesterday. Had she been well, she would have visited the families of the victims, he said.

Meanwhile, contractual labourers raised slogans on Thursday against the NTPC management.

They claimed they had forewarned about the “impending” disaster at Unit-6 as the temperature near the furnace was steadily rising.

Angry locals and family members of the injured have claimed that there was complete absence of medical facilities on the NTPC campus, which led to the spike in the number of casualties.

The workers accused NTPC officials of taking away their gate passes. The alleged that gate passes of injured and dead were also removed from their pockets.