Little space to move in with equipment, says diver in Assam’s rescue op

At least nine workers were feared trapped since Monday following flooding at the Assam Coal Quarry in the hill district

3 KILO, UMRANGSO: 

Efforts underway to rescue the labourers trapped inside an illegal rat-hole coal mine, in Dima Hasao district, Assam (PTI)

At least seven rat-hole mines, each two to three feet wide, lie at the bottom of a 300-foot-deep coal mine, leaving little space for divers to move in with their equipment and we were without a map --- recounted a diver from the 21 Paras of the Indian army, who recovered the body of one of the trapped miners on Wednesday morning from the coal mine located in the 3 Kilo area of Assam’s Dima Hasao district..

At least nine workers were feared trapped since Monday following flooding at the Assam Coal Quarry in the hill district. Divers and experts from agencies including the army, navy, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) began the rescue operation on Tuesday.

“When I went down for my first dive on Wednesday morning, I felt the body of one of the workers,” said the diver who recovered the body, Ganga Bahadur Shretho of Nepal, nearly 48 hours after the workers were trapped.

“He was trapped under a trolley at the bottom of the well. I somehow managed to extricate him and bring him out with the help of my colleagues,” he added.

Another diver involved in the rescue operation described the challenging conditions. He said, “There was zero visibility in the 300-foot-deep well, which is filled with water up to about 100 feet. The water is murky, and we had no blueprint, map, scale diagram, or sketch to guide us through the mine.”

“The rat holes are about 2-3 feet in height, leaving insufficient space for divers to manoeuvre with their equipment. Unlike the Indian navy’s deep divers, who are trained to go to greater depths, we usually dive to about 10 metres (approximately 30 feet). However, the water level in this well is around 27 metres (about 100 feet). Despite these challenges, we reached the bottom of the well and managed to locate the body,” he explained.

Officials said that this area contains both legal and illegal coal mines. Unlike regulated mines, these unregulated ones lack detailed information about their structure or the pathways of the rat-hole mines below.

The army divers said that the chances of finding anyone alive are now very slim. “However, we will continue searching for the trapped miners until they are found or the operation is officially called off,” they added.