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Khakasia remembers victims of Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP accident

The man-made accident occurred in the engine room of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydropower plant at 8:15 a.m. on August 17, 2009

GORNO-ALTAISK, August 17 (Itar-Tass) —— Khakasia remembered victims of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydropower plant accident on the third anniversary of the tragedy on Friday.

Hydropower plant personnel, contractors and residents of Cheremushki stopped working for a minute at 8:15 a.m. to commemorate their dead near and dear. Portraits of the accident victims and live flowers were placed in the power plant’s lobby, the engine room, technological levels 310, 315, 320 and 327 and the administrative building of KrasnoyarskGesStroy. There was a church service, too.

The man-made accident occurred in the engine room of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydropower plant at 8:15 a.m. on August 17, 2009. The destruction of the second hydropower unit ejected water from the turbine. The engine room was flooded; power and auxiliary equipment was damaged, and overhead structures tumbled down. All the ten hydropower units were disabled. Seventy-five people died.

A delegation of the Khakassia government led by premier Viktor Zimin and representatives of the RusHydro energy company visited the power plant on the tragedy anniversary. Ex-Russian Emergency Situations Minister, Moscow Regional Governor Sergei Shoigu paid an official visit. He led the rescue and repair works at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydropower plant on the first days after the tragedy. Three years ago Shoigu toured the power plant to evaluate the cleanup and reconstruction works.