Meghalaya coal mine incident : Navy divers, NDRF teams continue rescue ops without breakthrough
Guwahati, Dec 31 (IBNS) : A breakthrough continued to elude the rescuers engaged in a massive search operation for the 15 miners, trapped inside a flooded rat-hole coal mine in Meghalaya’s East Jaintia Hills district even on the 19th day on Monday.
Indian Navy divers, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and fire fighters from Odisha Fire Services are engaged in the rescue operation, but the divers were unable to reach the bottom of the flooded coal mine so far.
Assistant Commandant of NDRF’s 1st battalion Santosh Kumar Singh said five navy divers on Sunday had reached around 70 feet from the surface.
“The divers went inside the mine at around 3 pm and came out at around 6 pm,” Singh said.
The NDRF official said that 10 high-powered pumps were being used to flush out water from the mine to felicitate the search and rescue operations.
The miners remained trapped inside the flooded coal mine at Ksan village near Lumthari area since December 13 and their fate is still unknown even as the rescuers continues to struggle to locate them aid surging water inside the 370-feet deep pit.
The Meghalaya government had suspended the rescue operations on December 24 after two pumps proved ineffective in reducing the water level inside the coal mine . The operations resumed on December 29 after Indian navy divers and 21 fire fighters of Odisha Fire Services joined the operation with 10 high-powered pumps.
(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
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