Outlining a report on the causes of the Aug. 17 accident at the Sayano-Shushenskaya plant in southern Siberia, Rostekhnadzor director Nikolai Kutin described it in chilling detail. Part of an overstrained turbine unit weighing 1,500 tons snapped off its restraining bolts and sailed into the air, he said, unleashing flooding, short circuits and wreckage that crippled the plant and doomed dozens of workers in seconds.A 140 page report goes into most every detail of the disaster that caused the deaths of 75 workers. Here's the media summary report.
While the direct causes were essentially technical, he said, bad decisions stretching years back set the stage for a catastrophe that could probably have been avoided.
However...
...the finger-pointing at Anatoly Chubais should be taken with at least a cautionary pause. The Putin-Medvedev-run Kremlin machine has hung a number of things on Chubais to deflect public criticism of the government from back in the "privatization" time in Russia. The question is not "did he get rich by playing the system back then?"; the question is "was his leadership party to the negligence and mismanagement that led to this disaster?", and that remains to be proven.
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This item was first posted here in August, with the news of a massive accident at RusHydro's Sayano-Shushenskaya power station.
2 comments:
Regarding the Sayano Dam disaster, do you know where I can download the 140 page official report? I cannot find it anywhere on the Internet.
Thanks
@R
I can not point out a source for a simple download.
My understanding is that the full report has been handed off by Rostechnadzor (Environment and Technology "inspector's agency") to the PGO in Moskva (Russian Prosecutor General's Office; Moscow)... that implies it may not be out in public for a while... source: ITAR-TASS
I could be surprised, if a Russian-language source has it posted, but I'm not aware of any at this time.
My regrets.
@All
Perhaps this is a search challenge worthy of some of the other readers here?
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