Balangir, April 29: A fire that broke out early this morning at the Lanjigarh guesthouse of the Vedanta Alumina Limited in Kalahandi district claimed the life of the company’s project manager.

The mishap took place around 2.30am when the project engineer, T. Ganeshan, and four others were asleep inside the guesthouse.

Sources said the 40-year-old civil engineer, who hailed from Chennai, was a project manager of Hindustan Door-Oliver Limited. He had come to Lanjigarh a few months ago on an official assignment. The company was entrusted with the red mud treatment project since 2004. Sources said the guesthouse, which was built with fibre and had 15 rooms, was completely gutted in the fire. At the time of incident, five people were sleeping inside. While four managed to escape, Ganeshan was unable to get out.

The mishap was noticed when a television set exploded. Lanjigarh police, along with the fire brigade, reached the spot and doused the fire.

Sources said property worth around Rs 40 lakh was destroyed in the mishap.

“The fire was caused because of an electric short-circuit. A post-mortem was conducted on Ganeshan’s body at the government hospital in Lanjigarh and we have registered a case of unnatural death,” said inspector-in-charge of Lanjigarh police station Satya Nanda.

Chief operating officer of Vedanta, Mukesh Kumar, said the guesthouse had been lying almost abandoned for several months as no one was staying there. Recently, some officials of HDO Ltd were staying in the guesthouse, Kumar said.

Denying charges of negligence, Kumar said fire broke out because of a short circuit following heavy rain.