For the second consecutive day on Sunday, special teams of Telangana Crime Investigation Department (CID) examined the site of explosion in Srisailam hydel power project.
Reasons behind the massive explosion, which left nine staff members of the project dead and injured several others three days ago, are yet to be ascertained. CID Additional DG Govind Singh and DIG B. Sumathi already visited the place, following the government ordering an investigation into the incident.
Initial reports indicated that a short circuit in the panel boards of the power house could have triggered the explosion. However, this had to be corroborated and ascertained scientifically. The main task before the sleuths of CID now is to establish the source of fire, what ignited it and whether any human error or any other factor was behind the incident.
Led by the two top officials, task-specific special teams were constituted. An action plan was prepared to probe different aspects of the ‘fire accident’. Camping near the site, the CID sleuths began gathering information from the eye-witnesses.
One team collected information on how the electrical circuits, panel boards and switch systems at the blast site are operated. “Different factors result in electric short circuit. It could be due to quality of cables, not replacing old cables, inadequate trip systems,” a police officer supervising investigation from Hyderabad and unwilling to be named said.
What were the safety systems available at the site and was there any element of failure of those systems at the hydel station were other angles the CID sleuths were examining. “Diagnosing electrical sources of ignition is a challenge in fire investigations. There could be one or more possible sources of ignition. This needs to be ascertained,” said the officer.
Investigators are trying to speak with the injured persons as the latter would give first hand account of the incident. Already, they had spoken with some of the staff members working at the plant.
In the inquiries conducted in the past 48 hours and examination of the explosion site, no material raising suspicions of foul play were stumbled upon.
