Eight dead in Russian hydroelectric station accident

At least eight people died, 14 others were injured and 68 are still missing today after a transformer exploded at Russia's largest hydroelectric plant at Sayano-Shushenskaya in eastern Siberia, the government said.

The explosion caused the engine room of the hydroelectric plant to flood. The plant's dam was not damaged and the accident posed no threat to towns further south along the Yenisei river, emergency situations minister Sergei Shoigu said.

However, thousands of residents near the plant were fleeing the area fearing the dam may collapse.

The accident caused an oil spill. Two of the plant's 10 turbines in the engine room were destroyed, and a third was seriously damaged, Vasily Zubakin, acting chief executive of the plant's owner, RusHydrop said.

Reacting to the accident, the Kremlin said the mishap was due to an unspecified "hydraulic impact" at the plant which forced the shutdown of all 10 of the station's power units.

President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered emergency situations minister Sergei Shoigu and energy minister Sergei Shmatko to rush to the accident site and supervise the rescue operations.

Andrei Klyuvev, an emergency situations ministry official at the site of the accident, 4,000 kilometres east of Moscow, said there were still dozens of people unaccounted for.