NJHP accident: Chinese engineer, 3 labourers killed in shuttering collapse

MUZAFFARABAD:

Four people including a Chinese engineer were killed when a wall and shuttering of the under-construction Neelum Jehlum Hydroelectric Project collapsed in Nowseri, some 40 kilometres from here.

Three other persons including a local engineer also sustained injuries when the shuttering of the project and a protection wall came crashing down.

River Neelum is being diverted to generate electricity from the intake site.

According to the local police, the protection wall of a unit of the project suddenly fell down, killing the engineer and three other labourers on the spot.

The identity of the engineer could not be identified while the labourers were identified as Muhammad Ashraf, Shah Zaman and Sajjad Shah.

Teams of army, Rescue 1122 and local people jointly carried out a rescue operation and pulled the bodies and the injured from under the rubble.

The injured were shifted to the Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan Hospital at Muzaffarabad for treatment. Doctors at the hospital said that the injured were in critical condition.

The bodies were handed over to the relatives of the deceased for burials in Neelum Valley.

Some units of the strategic 969MW project are expected to be operational late next year.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 25^th, 2014.