15 miners trapped, rescue operation launched

Jul 12, 2012 |

SHILLONG

Tags:

At least 15 miners are trapped in a private coal pit in remote South Garo Hills district of Meghalaya since Friday and a rescue operation has been launched by National Disaster and Rescue Force on Thursday.

Official sources said that over 30 miners had gone down to the 100 m pit at Nengkhol village in Nongalbibra area and accidentally punctured the wall of an abandoned mine full of highly acidic water on Friday evening.

As the water from the abandoned mine rushed into the pit, 15 miners managed to escape, the sources said.

The rest are still trapped and hopes of getting them out alive were getting dim, they said. The district administration has engaged 10 pumps to drain the mine to rescue them, while two teams of NDRF based in Guwahati arrived at the spot late on Wednesday night and launched the rescue mission on Thursday.

Three persons - the mine owner, a foreman of a clan and a head labourer - were arrested in connection with the incident and booked for causing death due to negligence, the sources said.

South Garo Hills district administration has ordered a judicial enquiry into the incident, they added. Mineral-rich Meghalaya does not have a mining policy and coal and other minerals are being extracted by mine owners using the rat-hole method without any mechanism to ensure the safety of miners.

Villages in the coal belt in the state are virtually standing on a network of underground trenches dug to mine coal.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/170376" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-389f2a0ff26f11b81149d7ca8f6c11c3" value="form-389f2a0ff26f11b81149d7ca8f6c11c3" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="85459094" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>