Chinese barred from escaping chimney case
- Source: Global Times
- [01:47 September 28 2009]
- Comments
By Qian Feng in India and Qiu Wei in Beijing
Indian police have blocked employees of a Chinese company from leaving the country following a chimney collapse that killed 46 laborers in central India last week.
Local airport authorities were told not to allow any Chinese workers to leave the Chhattisgarh state, and several Chinese who fled Korba have been kept in the town of Bilaspur, about 125 kilometers from Korba, for a judicial probe, the Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) reported.
An anonymous official with the Chinese embassy in New Delhi confirmed yesterday the safety of engineers and site workers contracted for a power station project in Korba.
The official did not give the number of people involved, or their identities or locations.
The Shandong Electric Power Construction Corporation (SEPCO) was one of the firms contracted by India's state-owned Bharat Aluminium Company (Balco) to build the electricity station in Chhattisgarh.
Also Sunday, the Indian embassy in Beijing refused to confirm or deny the alleged police questioning of the Chinese nationals in connection with the chimney collapse.
C. Naik, a culture and information secretary at the Indian embassy, told the Global Times that he had taken note of relevant reports but didn't have any information available on the issue.
