Rescue workers retrieved bodies bodies of miners from a flooded rat-hole coal mine in Assam’s Dima Hasao district by Saturday (January 11, 2025) afternoon.
Four bodies have been recovered so far since January 8, two days after nine miners were trapped on January 6, 2025.
“Officials at the site of the mine in the Kalamati area, about 28 km from the nearest industrial town Umrangso,” said an Army and National Disaster Response Force team recovered the bodies between 7:28 a.m. and 12:40 p.m.
The deceased have been identified as 27-year-old Lijen Magar of Kalamati village close to the mine, Khushi Mohan Rai (57) from Fakiragarm in western Assam’s Kokrajhar district, and Sarat Goyari (37) of Thailapara in north-central Assam’s Sonitpur district.
The miner whose body was recovered on Wednesday (January 8, 2025) was identified as 38-year-old Ganga Bahadur Shreshta, a resident of the Udayapur district of Nepal.
Five more miners are still trapped and efforts by multiple agencies, including the Indian Navy, to rescue them from the 90-metre pit continued for the fifth day.
“Efforts to find the other miners will resume on Sunday (January 12, 2025) morning but dewatering will continue throughout the night. The water level is down to about 15 metres with six pumps draining out 2.43 lakh litres per hour from the affected mine,” Dima Hasao District Commissioner Simanta Kumar Das told The Hindu.
Six more pumps are simultaneously draining out water from three abandoned coal mines nearby — all at a lower elevation than the ill-fated mine, while the heavy-duty pump brought by Coal India Limited (CIL) from Maharashtra’s Nagpur will need some more time to set up.
“Once the CIL pump goes into the mine, the six small pumps will have to be taken out. Our priority is on mobilisation to wrap up the operation as soon as possible,” Mr. Das said.
The water level in the mine was almost constant at 30 metres for the first three days but technicians managed to bring it down by seven metres on Friday (January 10, 2025).
Abandoned mine
A few days ago, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had said the mine appeared prima facie to be illegal. Later, he said the mine was abandoned 12 years ago after being run by the State’s Mines and Minerals Department.
A case connected with illegal mining was registered at the Umrangso Police Station on Tuesday (January 7, 2025). The leaseholder of the mine, identified as Punish Nunisa, was subsequently arrested.
The second arrest was made on Friday (January 10, 2025) after the police caught Hannan Laskar, a financier of the operations, from the 3 Kilo area, the nearest major habitation from the mine.
Opposition parties claimed the wife of Debolal Gorlos, Chief Executive Member of the autonomous tribal council that rules Dima Hasao, is a major stakeholder in the mining operations. A reaction from the duo is awaited.
SIT probe sought
Assam Congress MP and Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi on Friday (January 10, 2025) wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking a probe by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) into the Dima Hasao incident and rampant illegal rat-hole coal mining despite the National Green Tribunal’s blanket ban in April 2014.
“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,” he wrote, pointing out that the Centre had acknowledged the continued existence of rat-hole mining activities in the reserve forests and proposed reserve forests of Assam, with data placed in the Lok Sabha in 2019.
He said local players in Dima Hasao, Karbi Anglong, and Tinsukia districts were heavily involved in illegal mining operations while the district administrations failed to take action. “If left unchecked, this ongoing negligence will continue to jeopardise workers’ lives and further harm the environment,” Mr. Gogoi said.
