SAYANO-SHUSHENSKAYA HYDROPOWER PLANT (Khakasia), August 24 (RIA Novosti) - Work to repair the Siberian hydropower plant where at least 69 people died in an accident last week has begun, a Russian emergencies official said on Monday.
"The operation has entered the rebuilding phase," said Sergei Shaposhnikov, the director of the Civil Defense Department of the Emergency Situations Ministry.
He said most emergencies ministry workers had left the site and experts were arriving for the reconstruction of the plant. He added that the dam wall was working as expected.
All 69 bodies recovered from the site have been identified, the Prosecutor General's Office said in a statement on Monday. Six people are still missing following the accident, which occurred on August 17 during repair work. A surge of water burst into the turbine hall, completely destroying three turbines and flooding several lower stories of the plant.
Almost all the water has now been pumped out of the premises, and Shaposhnikov said the only place where more bodies might be found was inside two of the generators, where the search for victims was now focused.
He added that the work there was laborious and complex, and in the past two days emergency workers had found lots of fragments of dead bodies.
It is more than 24 hours since the 69th body was discovered.
An emergencies ministry official warned plant management on Monday that survivors of the accident would need counseling.
"The shock will gradually pass for the survivors of this terrible accident, and they will start to seek psychological help. I ask you not to disregard these people," said Pavel Plat, the ministry's top military expert.
The Russian government said it would pay 1 million rubles ($31,500) to the family of each victim, and 100,000 rubles to each survivor. There is also funding available for stays at sanatoria and health resorts.
Victims' families, also to receive 1 million rubles from dam owner RusHydro, are seeking 5 million rubles in compensation for the accident.
