GUWAHATI

Deep divers from the Navy on Tuesday (January 7, 2025) joined the operations to rescue nine miners trapped in a water-filled coal mine in Assam’s Dima Hasao, a hill district.

One person, Punish Nunisa, was arrested in connection with the incident.

Also read: Assam coal mine mishap LIVE updates

The miners were trapped around 8 a.m. on Monday (January 6, 2025) and the district authorities received information about the mishap around 2 p.m. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said the mine could be illegal.

The Navy team flew from Visakhapatnam after the Army, Assam Rifles, National Disaster Response Force, State Disaster Response Force, and police personnel made a recce of the mine in a jungle at 3 Kilo, about 30 km from the nearest police station in Umrangso, in the morning.

“The Navy team is now spearheading the rescue efforts,” the Chief Minister posted on X.

Assam’s Special Director General of Police, Harmeet Singh, told journalists at the site that the Navy team came along with deep diving equipment. “There are tunnels inside the mine and more equipment will be required to go there,” he said.

Officials said the water level in the mine, about 20 ft in radius and 300 ft in depth, rose to more than 100 ft when the rescue operations started in the morning.

Earlier in the day, a statement issued by the district administration said, “Three bodies are seen from the ground have not yet recovered (sic).” An afternoon update read, “The bodies are yet to be recovered. Dewatering has been stopped for the time being.”

In one of his posts updating the operations, the Chief Minister said the mine, prima facie, appeared to be illegal and the Umrangso police had been asked to investigate the incident.

“Punish Nunisa was arrested in connection with a case registered by the police under Sections 3(5)/105 BNS, read with Section 21(1) of the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957,” he said.

The Chief Minister released the names of the trapped miners on Monday (January 6, 2025) night. They are: Ganga Bahadur Shreth (38) from Nepal, Sanjit Sarkar (35) from West Bengal, Hussain Ali (30), Jakir Hussain (38), Sarpa Barman (46), Mustafa Seikh (44), Khusi Mohan Rai (57), Lijan Magar (26) and Sarat Goyary (37), all from Assam.

Coal mine mishaps are quite frequent in the northeast.

In January 2024, a fire in a coal mine in Nagaland’s Wokha district left six workers dead and four others injured. In May of the same year, a mine in Assam’s Tinsukia district caved in, killing three miners.

In September 2022, three coal miners were killed in the Tinsukia district by inhaling suspected toxic gas.

The biggest coal mine disaster in about a decade was the death of 15 miners in a flooded rat-hole coal mine in Meghalaya’s Ksan area on December 13, 2018.