MOSCOW, September 21 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's largest hydroelectric station, severely damaged in an accident last month, will partially resume work in 2010, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Monday.
At a meeting on the aftermath of the August 17 water surge at the Sayano-Shushenskaya plant on Siberia's Yenisei River, which destroyed a turbine hall and claimed 75 lives, Putin said the Energy Ministry had drafted a reconstruction schedule.
"The power plant will produce its first electricity next year, in 2010," the premier said, citing the document.
However, he asked for an expert opinion on whether it would be safe to aim for such a short timeframe.
A source close to the restoration project said earlier that the sixth generating unit was planned to be repaired first, with the power supplies expected by April 2010. According to plans for repairing the fifth hydro unit, electricity supplies could be resumed by June 2010.
Putin called for efforts to conduct as thorough and objective a probe as possible into the disaster.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin said last week that the accident was caused, among other things, by poor technical controls on the part of the plant's management, and that the official commission investigating the incident would soon issue a report.
Russia's industrial safety watchdog said on Monday that the results of its probe would be announced on Thursday. Nikolai Kutyin, who heads Rostekhnadzor, hinted that the conclusions to be announced would refer to "technical and administrative faults."
Putin also demanded that equipment at all hydro plants across the country be checked, and proposed drafting unified rules for operating hydroelectric power stations as a preventive measure.
"Technical safety, the protection of people's lives must be the priority," the Russian premier said.
