SAYANO-SHUSHENSKAYA STATION, August 19 (RIA Novosti) - Two people who were listed as missing after Monday's accident at a hydropower plant in south Siberia have been found alive, Russia's emergencies minister said on Wednesday.

Sixty-two people are still unaccounted for after one employee of the Sayano-Shushenskaya station, Russia's largest, who was earlier reported as missing was discovered at home after returning from a fishing trip, Sergei Shoigu said. He gave no details about the other person.

At least 12 people were killed and 15 injured when a turbine hall at the giant station located on the Yenisei River was flooded early on Monday. The station, built in 1978, was shut down, briefly leaving nearby towns and major factories without electricity.

Speaking at the battered station, Shoigu said rescue and cleanup efforts would continue for about a week.

"I believe the active phase [of the efforts] will take at least a week. We hope that everything will go well today when water will start to be pumped out from the turbine hall," the minister said.

Shoigu said pumping would begin in the second half of the day allowing search efforts to be completed and turbines to be checked. He said efforts to clean up the debris at the generating facilities would require another two or three days.

He dismissed reports that rescuers had heard knocking sounds from inside the flooded facilities.

An emergency official working at the scene said on Tuesday there was practically no hope that more missing would be found alive.

Former station director Alexander Toloshinov said, however, survivors could still be found in what he called "air bubbles," or niches in flooded premises. But he said water temperatures were only plus 4 degrees Celsius.

Toloshinov, now a management board member of RusHydro, the owner of the hydro power plant, said a faulty turbine was likely to blame for the accident.

Shoigu threatened sanctions against people spreading panic in the region. Rumors that the dam was badly damaged and nearby areas could be flooded have led to local residents fleeing their homes en masse and buying up gasoline and other goods. Gasoline prices have also risen sharply in the region.

The energy minister, also in the region as part of a federal commission investigating the accident, said restoring the turbine hall would require at least 40 billion rubles ($1.3 billion), adding that damage was still being assessed.

Sergei Shmatko said tariffs should be slightly raised for thermal electric power following the accident, but pledged uninterrupted supplies.

Power supplies from other stations in the region and the European part of Russia were rerouted to make up for the energy shortfall following the accident.

A transformer oil slick that appeared on the Yenisei after the accident is moving downstream, local emergencies officials said. The slick is currently more than 15 kilometers (9 miles) wide, he said.

A total of about 400 metric tons of trout were killed at two local fish farms by the slick, a regional fisheries official said on Wednesday. There have been no reports on the death of river fish.

An estimated 40 metric tons of oil spilled into the river. Emergency workers are using sorbents and oil-spill booms to contain and remove the slick.

Authorities in the Republic of Khakasia, where the station is located, began distributing compensation among the victims' families on Wednesday. RusHydro earlier said 1 million rubles ($31,000) would be paid to the families of those killed in the disaster.

Wednesday is a day of mourning in Khakasia.

Investigators said an explosion had destroyed a room where turbines were located and caused the flooding. One of the station's 10 turbines was destroyed, two were partly destroyed.