6 dead, 17 injured in boiler explosion at Tamil Nadu's Neyveli Lignite power plant

NEYVELI: At least six men were killed and 17 others injured when a boiler exploded on Wednesday at the thermal plant of Neyveli Lignite Corporation (NLC) in Tamil Nadu's Cuddalore district.

The mishap occurred around 9.45 am at the fifth unit of the thermal power station-II (210 MW x 7) after a fire broke out while workers were carrying out maintenance activities for resuming operations, a company statement said.

"Six workers hired by a contractor died on the spot. The 17 other injured were rushed to the NLCIL hospital, from where 16 were taken to the Apollo Hospitals in Chennai for super specialty treatment," the statement read.


The company added that a high-level enquiry headed by PK Mohapatra, retired director (technical), NTPC has been ordered into the cause of the accident apart from an internal enquiry committee with senior executives headed by Director (Power) of NLCIL.

"The Unit Head of TPS-II has been placed under suspension pending enquiry by the management. All the four units of 210 MV each of TPS-II Stage II have been ordered for shut down for immediate safety audit," the company said.

The boiler explosion took place at the same NLC plant in Cuddalore where a previous blast on May 7 injured eight people