A severe accident at a power plant construction site belonging to German utility RWE Power has left three construction workers dead and another five injured.
The accident occurred when parts of the boiler scaffolding came loose and fell to the ground from a height of more than 100 m. The reason for the failure of the 450 t side panel construction is not yet clear.
The dead are two Slovak nationals and a Czech national. They are reported to have been on the scaffolding structure when it fell.
“Our thoughts are with families and loved ones of the victims and the injured. We hope that the injured workers will recover quickly,” said Dr. Johannes Lambertz, Member of RWE Power’s Executive Board.
The accident occurred on 25 October at the site of RWE’s BoA 2/3 project in Grevenbroich-Neurath, near Cologne, where the company is constructing two state-of-the-art lignite power plants. Alstom Power and Hitachi Power Europe are constructing the boiler.
RWE is investing EUR2.2 billion in the project, which involves the construction of two 1100 MW units using its so-called optimised plant technology (BoA). Construction of the units began in 2006 and is scheduled to take four years. Information on RWE’s website notes that the plants’ boiler and cooling tower structures will be some 173 m high.
