Six labourers killed, five critical after fly ash leak at Chhattisgarh steel plant

Six labourers were killed and five were critically injured after fly ash at an extremely high temperature leaked from the fifth floor of a steel plant and fell on 11 labourers in Chhattisgarh’s Balodabazar-Bhatapara district Thursday morning.

The incident took place at around 9.40 am in the sponge iron manufacturing unit of an industrial plant belonging to Real Ispat and Power Ltd in Bakulahi village in the Bhatapara rural area, the district’s Collector Deepak Soni said. Most of those killed are from Bihar, while the injured are from Bihar and Jharkhand, the police said.

According to preliminary information, the exhaust kiln unit, where residual material such as fly ash is generated, malfunctioned. “The malfunction is being investigated. Due to it, a very high temperature of fly ash leaked from the fifth floor. Eleven construction labourers were at the site. Six are dead and five are critically injured. There’s a lot of debris. The temperature was more than 500°C. The victims have died of heat injury, burn injury and suffocation. The injured have been taken to the burn centre in Bilaspur trauma care hospital,” said a police official.