Johannesburg - Construction on a new coal power station in South Africa has been halted after a worker was killed when a crane collapsed at the site, utility Eskom said on Tuesday.
An Eskom official said Kusile's completion date would not be affected and the first unit of the coal-fired power station is still scheduled to come online in the first half of 2017.
“We stopped working immediately,” said Eskom spokesman Khulu Phasiwe, adding that four other workers were injured in the same incident that occurred on Monday at the site in the north-eastern Mpumalanga province.
The utility had halted work at the entire plant on Monday following the incident, while construction in other areas not affected by the incident would continue, said Phasiwe.
He did not say when work would resume at the affected area.
Once complete, Kusile's six units are expected to add a combined 4 800 MW to South Africa's generation capacity in 2021, which now stands at about 45 000 MW.
Building new power stations has proved to be a big headache for Eskom, with cost-overruns and delays prolonging the energy crunch in Africa's most advanced economy.
Regular power cuts contributed to the South African economy contracting for the first time in more than a year last quarter.
Medupi, Eskom's other new coal power station, started partial operations, feeding 600 MW into the grid this year.
REUTERS