MOSCOW, September 15 (RIA Novosti) -- A Siberian hydroelectric power station, where at least 74 people died in an accident on August 17, needs to be completely rebuilt, the Russian prime minister said on Tuesday.
Seventy four people are known to have died in the accident at the Sayano-Shushenskaya plant in Siberia's Khakasia Republic on August 17, while one person is still listed as missing.
"We will finalize the schedule and stages for the reconstruction program and sources of funding in the very near future," Vladimir Putin said.
Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said the reconstruction program in 2010 would be financed from extra-budgetary sources with not a single ruble coming from the federal budget.
Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said reconstruction would take up to five years. Earlier, he put the repair cost at over 40 billion rubles ($1.2 billion).
State-controlled RusHydro, which owns the station, has said it will replace all damaged generating units by 2014.
Russia's crumbling infrastructure, underfunded since the 1990s, has often been the cause of such deadly industrial accidents.
According to Russian media reports, a local journalist who criticized the dam disaster was attacked last Wednesday near his apartment building.
