The water level in the flooded rat-hole mine in Dima Hasao district of Assam remained unchanged, affecting the operations on Sunday to rescue the remaining five miners trapped beneath since January 6.
Between January 8 and January 11, divers of the Navy, the Army, and the National Disaster Response Force retrieved four bodies of miners, one of them from Nepal. The other three were from different parts of Assam.
“The rescue workers did not recover any bodies today (Sunday) and the water level did not drop. We think this was because of the inflow of water from fissures in the mine,” Dima Hasao’s District Commissioner, Simanta K. Das, toldThe Hindu.
Officials said the operations to locate the trapped miners would resume on Monday. “Water is being pumped out from the ill-fated mine and three abandoned mines in the vicinity with nine pumps,” an official entrusted with draining the mines said.
Meanwhile, the Opposition parties have mounted pressure on the BJP-led Assam government to come clean on rat-hole mining in the State despite an April 2014 blanket ban by the National Green Tribunal.
On Friday, less than a week after saying the mine in the Kalamati area of Dima Hasao could be illegal, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said the mine was abandoned 12 years ago and was under the Assam Mineral Development Corporation until three years ago.
“The Assam government is not authorised to extract coal because the Union government is the owner of all fossil fuels or minerals found underground,” Jagadish Bhuyan, a former Minister and the general secretary of Assam Jatiya Parishad, said.
