GUWAHATI: Water levels have receded at the ill-fated rat-hole coal mine in Assam’s Dima Hasao district, where eight miners have been trapped since Monday following flooding.
District Magistrate Simanta Das informed this newspaper that five pumps were deployed on Friday to dewater the mine.
“We noticed significant improvement, as the water level has reduced by approximately seven meters,” Das said, adding that the water level on Thursday was around 100 feet.
Efforts are underway to operationalize a high-capacity pump flown in from Nagpur by Coal India Limited. “The installation process is ongoing, and we hope to have it operational by tomorrow evening,” the DM said.
Dewatering efforts were also extended to three nearby abandoned wells, believed to have been left unused before the ban on rat-hole mining.
In a related development, police detained a man described as the “assistant sardar” of the coal mine workers. Another individual had been arrested earlier.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma confirmed that nine miners were trapped in the mine and that the body of one miner, a Nepali national, had been retrieved.
The rescue operation involves personnel and resources from the Indian Navy, Army, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), Coal India Limited, and the district administration.
The incident has sparked protests, with the Congress staging a state-wide demonstration on Friday.
“This tragedy is not an isolated incident. Illegal mining has been ongoing in the region for years, with numerous such accidents reported in the past,” Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi said. He highlighted that in 2019, the Union government had acknowledged the presence of rat-hole mines in Assam during a Lok Sabha session. Gogoi further pointed out that the Assam government was aware of illegal coal mining activities in the state’s forest areas.
