Officials in India say the the death toll from the November 1 explosion at an NTPC thermal plant in Unchahar has risen to 43, with seven more deaths reported in the past week. Dozens of workers at the plant were injured when flue gases and steam were released from a 500-MW coal-fired unit at the plant during a maintenance operation. Several workers remain hospitalized, many with severe burns, according to local officials, who late November 10 said at least eight of the injured are in “very critical” condition.

India’s Power Ministry has a committee investigating the explosion at the Feroze Gandhi Unchahar Thermal Power Station in Uttar Pradesh state. The blast occurred in Unit 6 of the plant, a unit which was commissioned in March and had been operating on a trial basis since September. The six-unit, 1,550-MW Gandhi plant supplies electricity to nine states—Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan, Chandigarh, Delhi, and Uttarakhand—and employs about 870 workers.…

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