The cooling tower is one of two 1,000-megawatt coal-fired power units. It's designed to be 156 meters high when completed. Over 70 meters of the tower had already been built.

Almost half of Jiangxi cooling tower was completed

The budget for the project is 7.7 billion yuan or 1.1 billion US dollars. Work on the power plant's expansion began in April.

A construction company based in north China's Hebei province is responsible for the project. On its official website, Hebei Yi'neng Corporation says the firm specializes in the construction and renovation of chimneys and cooling towers.

An expert on the industry gave us an idea of what likely transpired.

"Workers stand on the platform to build the cooling tower. Below the platform, we can see there were some channels that were used to transport concrete. When the platform at the top collapsed, it fell upon the channels below and also upon the workers in these channels," said Gu Yujiong, North China Electric Power University.