Nine people remain trapped in the flooded Assam coal mine, and rescue efforts are still ongoing.
Three miners are feared dead at a flooded coal mine in India’s northeastern state of Assam, with rescue efforts continuing to save nine others.
Local authorities in Assam’s hilly Dima Hasao district said in a statement on Tuesday that rescue teams had found three bodies, but they were yet to recover them. Water flooded the mine on Monday, trapping 12 miners.
The Indian military said in a statement that it had sent divers, helicopters and technicians to help rescue the trapped men.
“Yesterday, the mine was flooded. The water source was inside. Maybe they (miners) hit a channel somewhere and the water came out and flooded the area,” Dima Hasao district. police chief Mayank Kumar told Reuters.
Assam state mines minister Kaushik Rai said: “Water gushing from a nearby unused mine threatened to trap workers 300 feet (91 meters) underground.”
“We are mobilizing resources to rescue them,” he added.
Photos shared by the military on social media showed rescue workers standing on the edge of a large vertical mine holding ropes, cranes and other equipment.
In eastern and northeastern India, workers often mine coal in dangerous conditions in small “rat hole” mines in the hills. After extraction, the coal is placed in boxes and pulled up to the surface by pulleys. Accidents are common in these illegal mining operations.
In one of the biggest disasters, at least 15 miners were buried in 2019 when water from a nearby river flooded an illegal mine in neighboring Meghalaya state.
