Balco Nagar (Chhattisgarh), Sep 24 - Over 100 rescuers struggled throughout Thursday to save dozens of people suspected to be still trapped under the debris of a 100-metre chimney of the Bharat Aluminium Company Ltd (Balco) plant here that crashed Wednesday. At least 26 bodies have been retrieved and the workers are now demanding a CBI probe into the crash.

Facing severe criticism from all quarters for allegedly overlooking safety norms, the Balco management announced a compensation of Rs.500,000 to each of the families of the killed workers.

The Chhattisgarh government too has offered help of Rs.100,000 to each family of those killed but it has maintained silence over a few media reports that the chimney construction was illegal.

District authorities at Korba, about 250 km from Chhattisgarh capital Raipur, said the deaths in the accident could surge once the wreckage of the under-construction 100-metre tower at the coal-fired power plant was cleared. The process might take at least another day or two.

'The rescue operation is under way with a dozen cranes pressed into clearance work, and rescuers are working cautiously to clear debris so that survivors, if any, can be pulled out,' Korba District Collector Ashok Agrawal told IANS.

He said about 50 workers, most of them from Bihar and Jharkhand, could still be under the debris that is strewn over a large area.

The chimney was proposed to be 250 metres tall. Construction of about 100 metres was completed when it crashed, leaving only bottom six metres standing.

Chief Minister Raman Singh made an on-the-spot assessment of the rescue operation while workers shouted slogans against the Balco management and sought a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the accident.

Singh refused to speculate on the number of people trapped.