Engineer dies in Vedanta fire

He was charred to death when the company’s guest house in the Lanjigarh complex of Vedanta Aluminium Limited caught fire at around 3 am on Sunday. HDO Ltd had been engaged by Vedanta Aluminium on contract for red mud filtration work at its alumina refinery plant for the last eight years. Ganeshan,who had joined the Lanjigarh project barely six days ago,was sleeping when the pre-fabricated structure caught fire due to a short circuit in the circular cable running through the guest house.

Vedanta Aluminium president Mukesh Kumar,who rushed to the site after the fire broke out,said the fire engulfed the guest house as the 16 airconditioners installed there also caught fire.

“We could save four out of the five people staying in the guest house. We could not save him. We presume that he was trying to gather his valuables instead of running away. His body was totally charred,” said Kumar,adding that the guest house was gutted in the fire.

Officials said that Ganeshan was married and wanted to bring his family to Lanjigarh as the project work was scheduled for a long period.