JAMURIA, ASANSOL, INDIA — Four people died after part of a chimney under construction collapsed at a power plant in the Jamuria area of Asansol, West Bengal, on the evening of 17 October 2026, according to NDTV’s report published shortly after midnight on 18 October Indian time.
NDTV identified the construction location as Shyam SEL And Power Limited and attributed its account to officials and local legislator Bijan Mukherjee. The report is about a construction-site incident; the cause has not been established.
Rescue account and proposed inquiry
Mukherjee told NDTV that four people were recovered after being trapped. Three had died at the scene and the fourth later died after being taken to hospital, he said. Other workers managed to move away as the structure failed.
The legislator said an inquiry would examine what happened. His remarks about the company’s reputation, training and use of safety equipment are attributed comments, not an independent engineering finding that the work was safe or that negligence was absent.
Technical cause remains unconfirmed
The available reporting does not establish which element failed first, the condition of temporary supports or the sequence of construction. No technical investigation report was available in the sources reviewed. Claims about a specific concrete defect, design error or responsibility would therefore go beyond the verified information.
HSEBlog analysis: Structural work requires scrutiny of temporary conditions as well as the finished design. The relevant questions for investigators include the work sequence, temporary stability and where workers were positioned. These are questions for examination, rather than conclusions about this site.
Related reading: construction safety topics and reporting and learning from workplace incidents.
Sources: NDTV, published 18 October 2026 IST; IANS report carried by The State Line. IANS also reported one seriously injured worker, attributing the incident account to police. The reports agree on four deaths but differ in details of the rescue sequence; the account above attributes that sequence to NDTV’s named source. Featured artwork is an illustration, not a site photograph.
Source
NDTVndtv.com
