Navy divers find body, skeletons in Meghalaya rat-hole coal mine

| | New DelhiShillong
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Navy divers find body, skeletons in Meghalaya rat-hole coal mine

Friday, 18 January 2019 | PNS | New DelhiShillong

Navy divers find body, skeletons in Meghalaya rat-hole coal mine

Weeks after 15 miners got trapped in a flooded rat-hole coal mine in Jaintia Hills district of Meghalaya, the Navy divers, engaged in rescue mission, on Thursday found the body of one of the miners.

The miners were trapped in the illegal mine on December 13 last year after water flooded it. The State Government then launched a multi-agency rescue effort.

“The Navy divers detected the body using underwater remotely operated vehicles (ROV) at a depth of approximately 160 feet and 210 feet inside the rat-hole mine,” Navy spokesperson DK Sharma said in New Delhi on Thursday and attached video grabs of the operation on the Twitter.

The body has been pulled up to the mouth of the mine.

A team of doctors has been rushed to the site to advise the rescuers on how to pull the body out of the mine, officials said. It was also learnt that some skeletons were also sighted in the mine.

The Navy spokesperson said, “Divers are not able to go down due to the conditions in the mine. So a ROV has been employed by the divers for the search. One body detected by Navy divers using ROV at a depth of approximately 160 feet and 210 feet inside a rat-hole mine.”

He also said “the depth is 160 feet and the body has been pulled up to the mouth of rat-hole mine and shall be extracted out of the mine under the supervision of doctors.”

Meanwhile, sources also said the Navy, which was pressed into the rescue mission on December 25, has deployed ten divers.  The search in the rat hole mine has been on for over three weeks.

On Wednesday night, a ROV located a body and some skeletons. Forensic experts are expected to reach the site on Thursday evening. They will give directions on how to proceed forward. 

The bodies have been decomposed due to high sulphur content there which has converted into acid due to presence of water, they added.

Several agencies including Navy, National Disaster Response Force(NDRF), Air Force are involved in the rescue operation.

According to the five miners who had made it alive, one of the workers could have accidentally punctured the walls of possibly another nearby abandoned the flooded mine.   In the Khloo-Ryngksan area, where the ill-fated mine is located on the western side of a small hillock, the Lytein river crisscrosses the valley for over two km.

Deputy Commissioner of East Jaintia Hills F M Dopth said there are at least 80-100 flooded and abandoned mines in the area.   The Supreme Court had rapped the Meghalaya Government over the slow progress of the search operation and inaction against illegal miners.

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