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Body spotted in Meghalaya mine, retrieval unclear
The Navy’s underwater remotely operated vehicle on Wednesday spotted a body during the search for 15 workers trapped in an illegal coal mine in Meghalaya since December 13. However, there is no clarity as to how long it will take to retrieve the body, which could be in a decomposed state.
The Indian Navy’s underwater remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Wednesday evening spotted a body during the search for 15 workers trapped in an illegal coal mine in Meghalaya since December 13, according to officials involved in the rescue operation. However, there is no clarity as to how long it will take to retrieve the body, which could be in a decomposed state, the officials said.
A joint rescue operation involving nearly 200 personnel from the National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF), Indian Navy as well state agencies, has been on at a “rat-hole” mine at Khloo Ryngksan in Meghalaya’s East Jaintia Hills district for the past one month. The rat-hole mining involves digging of small holes into the ground to extract coal.
Illegal mining is rife in the district and a National Green Tribunal ban on such activities has been in place for four years.
“Yes, the Navy-operated ROV has found a dead body,” S S Syiemlieh, additional deputy commissioner, East Jaintia Hills said on Thursday. The Navy also confirmed the development on Twitter: “The depth is 160 feet (and not 60 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.”
According to East Jaintia Hills district administration officials, deputy commissioner F M Dopth has invited five families of trapped miners to watch the footage captured by the ROV. The officials said the body could be in a decomposed state and efforts to retrieve it could lead to disintegration of the body parts.
The relatives will give their opinion on Friday whether they want the body to be pulled out, the officials said.
Meghalaya deputy chief minister Prestone Tynsong, said, “Operation is on and we have not given up yet.”
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, an NDRF official involved in the operation said that the body — the dead miner is seen wearing a “red T-shirt and a torn blue jeans” in the footage — was spotted around 6.30 pm on Wednesday.
The official also said the body is stuck in a rat-hole into which Navy’s ROV cannot enter. A Chennai-based company, which arrived at the spot a few days ago, is operating smaller ROVs in the main shaft, the official added.
The official said the agencies including the NDRF and the Navy were desperately looking for information on the rat-holes at the bottom of the main pit, which was flooded when water from the nearby Lytein river gushed into it while workers were digging it to extract coal. “We requested district administration to get in touch with Sayeb Ali, one of the survivors,” the official said.
Ali, a resident of Chirang district in neighbouring Assam, had claimed on December 18, that he along with three others managed to get out of the mine on December 13 itself.
The NDRF official said he got in touch with Ali and three others survivors to extract information inside the mine. “It was on the basis of their inputs that this body was spotted in a rat-hole,” the official said, adding that they are now hopeful of detecting others as ROVs would now search beyond the depth of 210 ft where the body was first spotted.
The Supreme Court last week pulled up the Meghalaya government for its inaction against illegal miners while saying that rescues efforts must continue.
