Three miners are feared dead as rescuers worked to reach nine men trapped inside a coal mine in Assam state. Authorities said the bodies had been spotted but teams were still trying to reach them.
The have been trapped since Monday, but rescue teams could only reach them on Tuesday as it is located in a remote part of the Umrangso area in the northeastern state’s Dima Hasao district.
They got trapped about 300 feet below ground level after water flooded in from a nearby disused mine.
“The mine got flooded yesterday — the source was internal. They (the miners) probably hit some water channel and water came out and flooded it,” a local official told Reuters.
The Indian army as well as the national and state disaster relief forces are trying to reach the trapped men.
Rescuers trying to reach miners
Assam’s Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said divers from the navy have been asked to aid the operation. “The water level inside the mine has risen to nearly 100 feet, according to the assessment by the stationed team. The divers are flying in from Visakhapatnam and are expected to arrive soon,” he posted on X.
A local official told AFP news agency that more than 100 rescue workers had been mobilized.
Images released by the Indian military showed divers in scuba gear being lowered into a deep shaft
Indian daily newspaper The Hindu said seven of the miners were from Assam, one from the neighboring state of West Bengal and one from Nepal.
The site of the incident is close to Assam’s neighboring state Meghalaya, where 15 miners working in an illegal mine were buried due to flooding in 2019.
So-called “rat hole” mines are found commonly in India’s eastern and northeastern regions. They are often illegal and prone to accidents and disasters due to poor safety conditions.
tg/kb (AFP, AP, Reuters)
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