(Reuters) -Nine workers were killed in an accident at a thermal power plant that is under construction in the southern Indian city of Chennai, officials said on Tuesday.
The incident occurred when a steel arch collapsed at a construction site at the Ennore SEZ Supercritical Thermal Power Project, said J. Radhakrishnan, secretary of the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board and chairman of the plant’s owner, Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation.
Radhakrishnan said one person was injured in the accident, in addition to the nine deaths.
Officials at BHEL, which is the contractor of the project, are present at the accident site, Radhakrishnan told reporters in a video posted on X by ANI, in which Reuters has a minority stake.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin confirmed the deaths in an X post and said the nine workers were from the eastern state of Assam.
“Saddened by the mishap due to the collapse of a building in Chennai, Tamil Nadu,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a post on X.
(Reporting by Shubham Kalia and Yazhini MV in Bengaluru, Chris Thomas in Mexico City; Additional reporting by Surbhi Misra in Bengaluru;Editing by David Goodman and Gareth Jones)
