Shillong,Dec.14 : At least 13 miners are feared dead after being trapped by flooding in an illegal coal mine site in Meghalaya’s East Jaintia Hills district, police said on Friday.
Dozens of emergency workers have been pressed in to pump water out of the large trench, while efforts are on to identify the people behind the illegal mining, Superintendent of Police (SP) Sylvester Nongtynger said.
The National Green Tribunal has banned unscientific and unsafe rat-hole coal mining in Meghalaya since 2014 after environmental activists complained it was responsible for severe water pollution.
If sources are to be believed the practice continues with locals who extract coal using dangerous ‘rat hole’ mines. This involves digging pits on the side of hills and then burrowing small horizontal tunnels into the hill to reach a coal seam.
This is not the first time that labourers engaged in illegal mining of coal have been trapped in a mine, a police officer said.
At least 15 miners were trapped in an illegal rat-hole coal mine near the Nangalbibra area in South Garo Hills in 2012. The bodies were never recovered, officials said.
Prasanta Patnaik