Summary The plant is part of a network of 8 hydroelectric stations under construction in oil-rich country.
QUITO (AFP) - A total of 13 people were killed and 12 injured in a tunnel collapse at a Chinese hydroelectric power station under construction in the Ecuadoran Amazon.
Three Chinese and 10 Ecuadorans died in the incident, Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa said on Twitter.
Ecuador s public radio reported that the fatalities occurred in the engine room at the Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric station.
"We re evaluating what has happened. It s a problem we re having in the pressurized piping," Dennis Salgado, the project s lead control technician, told AFP.
The Chinese-funded plant employs 7,000 workers -- 20 percent of whom are Chinese -- along the border of the Amazonian Napo and Sucumbios states.
The injured were being treated at a hospital in the town of El Chaco, according to the radio.
Coca Codo Sinclair, constructed by the Chinese firm Sinohydro, cost some $2.2 billion and is scheduled to begin operation in February 2016. It is expected to generate 36 percent of the energy currently consumed in Ecuador.
The plant is part of a network of eight hydroelectric stations under construction in the oil-rich country, which aims to stop importing electricity and become an exporter of clean energy.
