CIS: Russia power plant accident kills 8, scores missing
By Anna SmolchenkoTue Aug 18 04:08:23 EST 2009
EDS: Updates toll
MOSCOW, Aug 17 AFP - Water pipes have ruptured at Russia's largest hydroelectric plant, causing flooding that killed at least eight people and left scores missing, officials said.
The accident, which happened early on Monday, caused major power disruption in Siberia.
Officials said eight plant workers were killed and 14 injured when a sudden change in water pressure caused the rupture at the Sayano-Shushenskaya plant in the Khakassia region.
In a statement, the Kremlin said the accident was due to an unspecified "hydraulic impact" at the plant which forced the shutdown of all 10 of the station's power units.
President Dmitry Medvedev ordered Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu and Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko to fly to the scene and take personal control of the crisis, the Kremlin said.
Andrei Klyuvev, an emergency situations ministry official at the accident site, 4,000 kilometres east of Moscow, said there were still dozens of people unaccounted for.
"The fate of 68 people is unknown," Klyuyev told the Echo of Moscow radio station.
Klyuyev said rescue divers had pulled out one person from a room underneath the plant's turbine hall where there was apparently a cave-in and flooding but said many more could still be trapped.
"At the moment we cannot determine whether these people were down there or managed to get out somewhere but we know that there were that many people on this shift," Klyuyev said.
The accident at the plant disrupted power supply to key smelters in the region including those of UC Rusal, Russia's largest aluminium producer.
A Moscow-based spokeswoman for Rusal, which is controlled by billionaire businessman Oleg Deripaska, said, however, the work of the smelters had not been disrupted due to redistribution of power from alternative sources.
The company said in a statement released later that Deripaska had discussed with Shmatko the possibility of reducing output from UC Rusal smelters to free up energy resources to ensure "stable functioning of the region".
Russia's financial regulators ordered the suspension of trading on both Moscow stock exchanges in shares of state-run RusHydro, the corporation that owns the affected hydroelectric station.
Konstantin Reily, a utilities analyst at Finam, estimated that it might take up to $US3 billion ($A3.62 billion) to replace the three damaged power units.
"This is an extraordinary event. This is the first accident of such scale at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric plant," he added.
Another emergency situations ministry spokesman, Dmitry Kudryavtsev, said the body of the dam at the heart of the power plant had not been damaged.
Some people living close to the hydroelectric station panicked, despite official claims that adjacent villages and towns faced no danger of flooding, he said.
The mayor of the nearby town of Abakan, speaking to Echo of Moscow radio, said lines had begun forming outside bakeries and gas stations.
Speaking to reporters in Moscow, Shoigu said there was no threat of the dam breaking but added it would take "years" to repair the damaged power units.
The natural resources ministry said it was concerned by the environmental impact of the accident, saying an oil slick of more than five kilometres was spreading along the Yenisei River.
"According to preliminary data, transformer fluid has leaked from one of the hydroelectric station's damaged units," the ministry said in a statement.
