Shillong, June 18: The Indian Navy’s diving team is tireless continuing the search for the remaining four miners trapped inside a flooded coal mine in East Jaintia Hills. The team had found one body on Wednesday since the start of rescue operations on June 12.
At least five miners got trapped inside an illegal coal mine in Sutnga Elaka after a tragic accident that took place on the night of May 30. So far, police have arrested the owner of the coal mine, Shining Langstang, and charged him for violation of the NGT order banning unscientific mining and transportation of coal.
Currently, over 50 personnel from National Disaster Response Force (NDFR), State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), District Disaster Response Force (DDRF), Fire and Emergency Service and the police have been deployed at the site, and the Naval divers trained to dive to such depths are carrying out the critical task of searching and retrieving the trapped miners.
It may be recalled that the Indian Navy had assisted in the rescue and recovery effort of 15 miners trapped in a mine in Ksan, Meghalaya under similar conditions, in December 2018.
In a press statement, the Indian Navy explained that the current operation entails the Indian Navy divers to lower themselves and their specialised diving gear into an extremely narrow shaft to a depth of almost 400 feet and carry out diving upto further 100 feet, to search for trapped miners within a complicated interconnecting labyrinth of horizontal shafts, with barely enough space for a person to crawl. Diving operations are further challenged by poor underwater visibility, unmapped shaft construction hazards, flotsam and falling debris. Further, diving for prolonged durations in low temperatures (3 – 5 degree Celsius) pose significant medical risks such as hypothermia.
While the divers have specialised equipment such as the Diver Hand Held Navigation System (DHNS) for bottom-mapping of the mine-shaft, the Navy remarked that any technology can do little to ameliorate the raw, gut-wrenching adversity that such an operation entails.
