The water level at the flooded rat-hole coal mine in Assam’s Dima Hasao district receded by seven metres on Friday (January 10, 2025), brightening hopes of locating eight miners trapped inside since the morning of January 6. The body of one miner, a resident of Nepal, was retrieved on January 8.
During the day, the police detained a ‘financier’ of the mining operations from 3 Kilo, the nearest major habitation from the mine at Kalamati about 15 km away. The mine is about 30 km from Umrangso, an industrial town with a cement plant and a hydropower project of a Central public sector company.
Dima Hasao District Magistrate Simanta Kumar Das said that the process of ‘dewatering’ or draining three abandoned mines within 500 metres of the ill-fated mine helped lower the water level within it. It is possible that these mines – each with a network of narrow tunnels branching out from the wall of a vertical pit – could be interconnected.
The three mines were believed to have been abandoned before the National Green Tribunal banned rat-hole coal mining in April 2014.
Drainage pumps
“We noticed a significant improvement after five pumps were used on Friday (January 10, 2025) to dewater the mines. The water level of the mine where the miners are trapped went down by about seven metres,” Mr. Das told The Hindu. Between Tuesday (January 7, 2025) and Thursday (January 9, 2025), the water level had remained almost unchanged at around the 28-metre mark in the 90-metre pit, despite constant efforts to drain it.
Mr. Das said the dewatering process is expected to pick up speed once the high-capacity pump flown in from Nagpur by Coal India Limited (CIL) on Thursday (January 9, 2025) begins operations. “It is a complex process but we hope to press this pump into operation by Saturday (January 11, 2025) evening,” he added. Deep divers from the Indian Navy and other personnel from the Army, the National and State Disaster Response Forces, ONGC, CIL, and the district administration are engaged in the rescue mission, entailing a massive expenditure.
Investor detained
Officials said that Hannan Laskar, who allegedly invested in the mining operations and kept the miners under pressure to extract a large volume of coal, was detained in connection with the mine mishap.
“We are questioning him to find out more about the illegal operations in the area,” a local police officer said. Opposition political parties have claimed there are about 200 illegal rat-hole mines in the area, about 60 of which are still active.
On January 6, the police arrested Punish Nunisa, the lease-holder of the mine where the eight miners are trapped.
Illegal coal mining
Meanwhile, the Congress staged a State-wide protest against the incident on Friday (January 10, 2025).
“This tragedy is not an isolated incident. The issue of illegal mining in the region has been ongoing for years, with numerous such accidents reported in the past. The Centre confirmed the presence of rat-hole mines in Assam according to publicly available data shared in the Lok Sabha in 2019. The Centre also confirmed that the Assam government was aware of illegal coal mining in forest areas in the State,” Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi said.
