OREANDA-NEWS. July 23, 2010. On July, 21th, 2010 at 5:25 a.m. at RusHydro’s Baskanskaya HPP (with installed capacity of 25 MW) an explosion happened. As a result the turbine room was damaged. Currently EMERCOM of Russia (Emergency Control Ministry of Russia), FSB (Federal Security Service) and MIA (Ministry of Internal Affairs) are working on place. The fire occurred in turbine room after the explosion was extinguished. The scale of destructions is being specified.

According to the preliminary data the explosion and fire were caused by the terror act. Unfortunately, two security officers were killed and two persons are hospitalized.

The damage was done only to the turbine hall of the HPP.

As far as the current operation of the HPP is concerned, it should be mentioned, that the gates are opened, and the spillway runs free. Also there are no restrictions of power supply to consumers.

Today the JSC RusHydro Management board is flying to Baksanskaya HPP. Soon the damage will be assessed and an enlarged schedule of recovery work will be made.

The protection of all JSC RusHydro companies and especially HPPs located in the North Caucasus Federal district was enhanced.

Baskanskaya HPP is included into the JSC RusHydro Dagestan branch. It is situated on the Baksan river of Baksansky area of the Kabardino-Balkarian republic. The HPP’s installed capacity amounted to 25 МW.

Baksanskaya HPP was constructed in 1930-1936 under the specified State Plan for Electrification of Russia. The first unit with the capacity 8300 kW was entered into work on the 20th September 1936.