Water poured into the 310-foot deep 3 Kilo Coal Quarry in Umrangso of Dima Hasao district on January 6 and several teams, including Navy divers, had been dispatched to rescue trapped workers.
Five additional bodies of labourers who were trapped within an illegal ‘rat-hole’ coal mine in Assam’s Dima Hasao district have been retrieved, 44 days since the building got flooded, engulfing nin
Water flooded into a 310-foot deep 3 Kilo Coal Quarry in Umrangso, Dima Hasao district, on January 6 and there were teams such as Navy divers who were put out to save the workers stuck inside. Bodies of four labourers were previously retrieved and according to the Assam government, all the stuck workers are accounted for.
The corpse of one of the labourers was retrieved on January 8 and three others were discovered three days later. The state government has compensated the families of four miners whose bodies were retrieved earlier with Rs 10 lakh each, and the families of the rest received Rs 6 lakh each. The Assam government had earlier declared that a total of Rs 10 lakh each would be given to every family.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has already stated that the mine was abandoned 12 years ago. A judicial investigation has been initiated into the accident.
Apart from the depth of the ‘rat-hole’ mine, another aspect that was making locating the labourers difficult was that the main shaft led to four small tunnels, each of which branched out, creating a large network. There was no blueprint available for the rescue teams to refer to.
