The China Township of Bokaro was gutted in a major fire broke-out. Though no casualties have been reported, goods worth several lakhs rupees have been destroyed when a major fire broke out in the Chinese dormitory residence area at Electrosteel limited (ESl) at Parbatpur about 35 kms from district head quarter of Bokaro, police said.
Dozens of cabins of the Chinese residence area were engulfed in the fire, police said. It took the fire-fighters more than five hours to get control of the fire in which several several important documents , household goods including AC, Computers, laptops, TV, Fridge, electrical and electronic equipements too were burnt, said Rohit Singh Public Relation Officer of ESl.
"Right now it's difficult to assess the actual loss; it might be take 10 more days to calculate", added Singh.Though there were conflicting reports about the incident out but ESl officials' claimed that electrical short-circuit was the reason behind the fire.
The Chinese residence or township area had come up at Siyaljori over the past three years following construction of ESl in Bokaro. Electrosteel with its new unit near Siyaljori village in Bokaro District of Jharkhand with 1.2 MTPA production capacities is based on Chinese technology.
Till the year 2011 there were more than 1,000 Chinese residing there; more than 850 of them have already left. At present, only 150 people are residing to look after operation and maintenance work. For assistance in operation and maintenance the ESl roped in with laiwu Steel Group limited (lSGl). Soon after giving the final touch to their work at the steel plant they (Chinese) would be left, official said.
This ESl unit is based on blast furnace (BF)-basic oxygen furnace (BOF)-billet caster and hot rolling route and will produce 1.2 mtpa of longsteel products, comprising 0.5 mtpa of 5.5-12.0 mm diameter wire rods in coil form and 0.7 mtpa of reinforcement bars in straight lengths and bundled in the range of 8-32 mm and plain rounds up to 60 mm diametre.
Notably, ESl is not just the first in India which is built entirely with Chinese collaboration but also the first which is constructed by Chinese workforce; Almost 2,000 Chinese workers were engaged in its establishment.