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Chinese worker killed in mass brawl at Bangladeshi power plant site

A 26-year-old Chinese electrician has died of head injuries after a mass brawl erupted between domestic and Chinese workers building a major power plant in Bangladesh.

More than a thousand police came to break up the fight involving hundreds of workers on the Chinese-funded, 1320MW Payra coal plant in the Patuakhali district, 200km south of Dhaka.

Five other Chinese workers and two Bangladeshi workers were hospitalised, with the Chinese workers transferred to Dhaka, reports Dhaka Tribune.

Police said the violence broke out after a Bangladeshi died in a fall on site, with locals accusing the Chinese side of covering up the fatality, reports news agency AFP. 

In 2016, China’s Exim Bank agreed a $1bn loan for the Payra power plant, which is being built by a 50:50 joint venture between Bangladesh’s North-West Power Generation Company and China National Machinery Import and Export Corporation (CMC). 

Image: ©GCR, illustration by Denis Carrier

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Comments

  1. If there is any truth to a cover up of a fatality, this needs a serious investigation that really should go beyond a traditional investigation by Bangladeshi police. Senior figures need to be held accountable for that kind of “safety culture”, but it must be a rather unique event to have to get to the bottom of, and I don’t envy the investigator that parish.

  2. The article is far from funny but the evoked image made me laugh, straight out of Monty Python film

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