13 killed in tunnel collapse at Chinese-funded power station in Ecuador

[KimJongUn]

13 killed in tunnel collapse at Chinese-funded power station in Ecuador

PUBLISHED : Monday, 15 December, 2014, 11:30am
UPDATED : Monday, 15 December, 2014, 11:35am

Agence France-Presse

Workers at the Chinese-funded hydroelectric plant in Ecuador, where a tunnel collapse has killed 13 people, including three from China. File photo: Xinhua

Thirteen people were killed and 12 injured in a tunnel collapse at a Chinese-funded hydroelectric power station under construction in the Ecuadoran Amazon.

Three Chinese people and 10 Ecuadorans died in the accident, Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa said on social media.

Ecuador’s public radio reported that the deaths occurred in the engine room at the Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric station.

“We’re evaluating what has happened,” Dennis Salgado, the project’s lead control technician, said.

The Chinese-funded plant employs 7,000 workers, 20 per cent of whom are Chinese, along the border of the Amazonian Napo and Sucumbios states.

The injured have been treated at a hospital in the town of El Chaco, according to the radio report.

Coca Codo Sinclair, constructed by the Chinese firm Sinohydro, cost US$2.2 billion and is scheduled to begin operation in February 2016.

It is expected to generate 36 per cent of the energy currently consumed in Ecuador.

The plant is part of a network of eight hydroelectric stations under construction in the oil-rich country, which aims to stop importing electricity and become an exporter of clean energy.