Five persons, of them four women, were confirmed dead as an abandoned open cast mine collapsed at Gopinathpur in Jharkhand’s Dhanbad district on Monday, police said.
Dhanbad senior superintendent of police Sanjeev Kumar said the district administration and officials of Eastern Coalfields Limited, which owns the mine, conducted rescue Thursday morning. “It is an open cast mine where mining was stopped around 15-20 days back. Five bodies have been recovered,” said Kumar.
While BJP MLA from Nirsa, Aparna Dasgupta, alleged around a dozen people had died, the SSP ruled out any more recoveries.
On allegations that illegal mining was going on at the abandoned site which led to its collapse, the SSP said he has formed a probe team. “As per the initial information, several coal pickers from neighbouring areas go to such spots everyday. And most of these pickers are women. We have also directed the ECL mines safety division to probe if any technical loophole was behind the collapse,” said Kumar.