One more body found from NEEPCO hydropower project pump room

One more body was found on Tuesday from inside a pump house of state-run NEEPCO, two weeks after the water pipelines of the Kopili Hydroelectric project in Assam's Dima Hasao district burst, police said.

On Monday bodies of two of the four-person feared inside the pump house was recovered.

A body was recovered Tuesday evening in the disaster site inside the G minus 3 (G-2) room taking the total number of bodies recovered to three, police said.

The rescue team was working round the clock to rescue the fourth person feared trapped since the bursting of the water pipelines on October 7, they said.

Two pipelines had burst at around 4 am on October 7 when repairing works were on, North Eastern Electric Power Corporation (NEEPCO) officials said.

It took the NDRF and SDRF more than a week to begin rescue operations as they had to wait for the water level to decrease, officials said.

Ninety per cent machinery of the project was damaged in the disaster, which created a water fountain that rose to several feet into the sky, the NEEPCO officials said.

A high-level team from Delhi, including NEEPCO chairman and managing director Vinod Kumar Singh, had visited the site to assess the situation.

The cause of the disaster could be water acidity that affected the pipeline.

The water pipeline was repaired in 2018 and the blast took place on the same portion, NEEPCO officials said.

Located on Kopili river, the 275 MW Kopili Hydro Electric Project was the maiden venture of NEEPCO when it came into existence in 1976.