Five workers, including an electrical engineer, suffered severe burn injuries after a massive flashover in the power line circuit breaker inside the Damodar Valley Corporation-owned Mejia Thermal Power Station, today.

They were charred and shifted to a private superspecialty hospital in Durgapur town. The hospital sources said that the condition of three were critical.

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Breaker flashover caused severe damage to both the power plant employees and the equipment, machineries, sources said. The experts said, “Circuit breakers can explode due to abnormal conditions, which can either be internal or external.”

At Unit 2 of the MTPS, the mishap occurred around 10.30am when the senior divisional engineer (electrical) Bijoy Mondal, two annual maintenance labourers, Kamal Goswami, Sukhen Bauri and two labourers, Rahul Das and Iswar De, deployed by a supplier, were shouldering a overhauling job at the 6.6 Power House of the Unit 2 of the MTPS. “The unit was kept in shutdown mode since 1 August for maintenance,” said an official. He added: “The high-power cable network linked to the breaker had extensive carbon deposition, which they were cleaning.” During this the breaker suddenly exploded. The DVC has ordered a probe into the matter.