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Dewatering in ill-fated Assam coal mine continues, no sign of trapped miners

In Assam
January 21, 2025
Dewatering in ill-fated Assam coal mine continues, no sign of trapped miners

Persistently high levels of water affected the ninth day of operation on Wednesday (January 15, 2025) to find the five miners trapped in the water-filled rat-hole mine in Assam’s Dima Hasao district since January 6.

The personnel of multiple agencies, including the Indian Navy, Army, and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) retrieved the bodies of four of the trapped miners between January 8 and 10. The Navy team, flown in from Visakhapatnam, was withdrawn from the site at Kalamati near the industrial town Umrangso on January 13.

“We believe the miners might have, in the process of extracting coal from the labyrinthine tunnels branching out from the 90-metre pit, hit a water source linked to the Kopili River flowing down from Meghalaya. The river’s bed is higher than the depth of the ill-fated mine,” a district official said.

He said dewatering the mine and three abandoned ones nearby simultaneously with 10 pumps has failed to lower the water level, which has been reduced to about 12 metres from the 30 metres on the day of the mishap. “The level is lowering minimally as water continues to stream in,” he added.

Also read | Understanding rat-hole mining

Earlier, State Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said the water levels decreased by less than a foot after 36-48 hours of dewatering. “We suspect that the coal mine is somewhere connected to the Kopili River… the Geological Survey of India has started its study on it and they will provide us with a comment. But we will try to continue the dewatering process. After 3-4 days, we will have to take a view on it,” he said.

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