A day after the body of a miner was brought out of the coal mine in East Jaintia Hills district, Meghalaya, the Navy divers on Saturday located the body of another miner trapped inside the mine. Fifteen miners were trapped in the illegal mine on December 13 last year after water from the nearby Lytein river flooded it prompting a multiple-agency rescue attempt.
“Indian Navy diving team finds second body 280ft inside the rat-hole mine. First body was recovered yesterday,” a spokesperson of the Navy tweeted on Saturday. District Deputy Commissioner FM Dopth said, “The Indian Navy has informed us that another body was found at 3am and is located at about 280 feet away from the bottom of the main shaft.”
He said the body is decomposed and efforts are on to retrieve it to the top of the mine, using the Navy’s remotely operated vehicle (ROV), with the help of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF).
Meanwhile, the first body, of Amir Hussain from Assam’s Chirang district, spotted in the mine was handed over to the family members Saturday morning. In a joint operation, the Navy and the NDRF pulled Hussain’s body out of the mine’s shaft on Thursday, after it was first spotted on January 17. Nearly 200 rescue personnel from the NDRF, the Indian Navy, Odisha Fire Service and State agencies are involved in the search-and-rescue operation.
The owner of the mine, Krip Chullet, was arrested from his home on December 14. His accomplices are on the run. The Meghalaya Government has released Rs 1 lakh interim relief for the families of the trapped miners. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is monitoring the rescue mission and the matter is scheduled to come up for hearing again on Monday. The apex court had earlier said search must continue as “miracles do happen.”
Last week, the Navy divers had spotted some skeletons in the ill-fated mine through the ROV but could not bring out them as most of the bodies were decomposed due to high sulphur content. However, along with other rescue teams the Navy is continuing its efforts to locate and bring out bodies, source said in New Delhi.