Rescue operations are still underway as nine others remain trapped in the flooded Assam coal mine.
Three miners are feared dead in a flooded coal mine in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, and rescue efforts are underway to save nine others.
Rescue teams have spotted three bodies but have not yet been able to retrieve them, local authorities in Assam’s hilly Dima Hasao district said on Tuesday. Twelve miners were trapped when water flooded the mine on Monday.
The Indian military said in a statement that it had deployed divers, helicopters and engineers to help rescue the trapped men.
“The mine was flooded yesterday — the source was internal. They [the miners] it probably hit some water channel and the water came out and flooded it,” Mayank Kumar, the district police chief in Dima Hasao, told Reuters news agency.
“They feared the workers were trapped 300 feet [91 metres] underground after water gushed from a nearby disused mine,” said Assam’s Mining Minister Kaushik Rai.
“We are mobilizing resources to save them,” he added.
Photos shared by the military on social media showed rescuers with ropes, cranes and other equipment standing at the edge of a large vertical mine.
In the east and northeast of India, workers often mine coal in dangerous conditions in small quantities “rat hole” mines. in hilly regions. After extraction, the coal is placed in boxes and raised to the surface using pulleys. Accidents in these illegal mining operations are common.
In one of the biggest disasters of 2019. at least 15 miners they were buried while working in an illegal mine in the neighboring state of Meghalaya after it was flooded by water from a nearby river.
