Telangana: Fire breaks out at Srisailam hydropower station

A short circuit at underground hydroelectric power station situated at Srisailam's dam left bank in Telangana's Nagarkurnool led to a fire, followed by an explosion in unit 4 of the power plant. The incident happened around 10.30 pm on Thursday. Around 25 people were on the shift duty at the power station when the fire broke out. While some have been rescued, eight people are still missing.

Engineers of the Telangana State Power Generation Corporation were working on routine maintenance when the fire broke out.

The station has more than six power generators at its underground plant -- each one carries out 150 MW (megawatts) capacity electrical power generators. The fourth panel caught fire first. Duty officers tried to douse the fire, but with power shutdown, it seemed impossible. Dense smoke was seen coming out from the zero level and rising to the service bay and soon the entire power station was filled with the billows of smoke. This hampered the rescue operation at the station. The power failure was another hurdle to the operations.