13 killed in tunnel collapse at Chinese-funded power station in Ecuador
Three Chinese workers are among 13 people killed after a tunnel collapse, which left 12 others injured, at a Chinese-funded power station being built in the Ecuadoran Amazon
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.