Two Dead, Four Injured in Incident at Bruce Mansfield Coal Plant Near Pittsburgh

Two workers are dead after a pipe ruptured as they were performing maintenance at an underground enclosure at FirstEnergy Corp.'s coal-fired Bruce Mansfield power plant in Shippingport, Pennsylvania.

Four other workers were transported to medical facilities, suffering injuries after they were overcome by fumes released by the pipe rupture, Pennsylvania State Police confirmed.

FirstEnergy said the incident occurred at around 11:30 p.m. local time on August 29. Troopers and emergency crews were called to the power plant at 1:15 a.m.

Police said that the accident happened as a team of seven workers were repairing a pipe or piping equipment as part of maintenance project when a gas leak occurred.

The two workers who died were contractors at the plant, FirstEnergy spokesperson Stephanie Walton told POWER. "We do not have additional information or medical status for the four injured workers. There is no threat to public safety or other workers at the plant, and it continues to operate normally," she said.

Walton also said that the company is cooperating fully with local investigators as well as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The three-unit 2.5-GW Bruce Mansfield power plant is FirstEnergy's largest coal facility. All three units came online between 1976 and 1980. About 350 people work at the plant.

-Sonal Patel is a POWER associate editor (@sonalcpatel, @POWERmagazine)

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