Meghalaya coal mine mishap: 10 shafts cleaned on Sunday, agencies to continue rescue efforts, dewatering of site

East Jaintia Hills: Efforts to find the miners trapped in a Meghalaya mine Since 13 December, 2018 made little progress, as the process of cleaning the 10 shafts got completed on Sunday. Dewatering on the incident site by CIL pump and its adjoining areas continued for 16 hours before being concluded at 5 pm on Sunday. It pumped out 2160000 litres of water while the KSB pumped 6336000 litres of water. One Kirloskar pump also discharged 2880000 litres of water. The NDRF and the SDRF continue to be present on the site to assist other agencies with all available resources. [caption id=“attachment_6233821” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Meghalaya mine pumping operation. ANI[/caption] Two out of 13 bodies of miners were recovered 77 days after 15 coal miners were trapped inside the rat-hole coal pit by the Indian Navy divers, after they retrieved the first body identified as that of Amir Hussain from Assam’s Chirang district on 23 January. Multiple agencies are involved in the operation which is underway to rescue the miners trapped in the mine located at Ksan near Lyteiñ River in East Jaintia Hills. On 28 January, the Supreme Court had asked the Centre and the Meghalaya government to continue their efforts to rescue the miners. The miners got trapped in the illegal mine in Lumthari village when water from the nearby Lytein river flooded the mine. Since then, a multi-agency rescue operation has been underway to rescue the miners.