Raipur:
Six people including two Deputy General Managers are dead and 34 sustained injuries after a gas leak occurred at the Bhilai Steel Plant in Chhattisgarh on Thursday.
Four plant workers are also among the dead. Of the injured, 11 people are admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
At around 6:30 pm, a leakage was reported from water pump number 2 at the plant after the pump house got inundated with water.
Chief Minister Raman Singh expressed grief over the incident. "My heart goes down for families of deceased @ BSP Bhilai.In touch with Union Ministers & local administration for relief & rescue operations (sic)," he tweeted.
The injured included Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel, workers and officials of the public sector plant. All the affected persons have been taken to Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital in Bhilai and the seriously ill have been admitted to ICU, said Inspector General of Police (Durg Range) Pradeep Gupta.
"Plant management is providing all the possible care and support and efforts are on for an early liquidation from the breakdown. High level enquiry shall be conducted to ascertain the cause of the breakdown and management will extend all the support to the affected persons," the company statement said.
Meanwhile, Congress MP Tamradhwaj Sahu claimed that the accident was avoidable and that maintenance had not been done for years. "The steel plant is maintained by contractual workers, not skilled persons," he said.