Meghalaya mine tragedy: Navy divers find second body 280 feet in rat hole, rescue efforts continue

Shillong: Navy divers on Saturday recovered a second body today from the flooded rat-hole coal mine in Meghalaya where over 13 workers remain trapped since 13 December, 2018. [caption id=“attachment_5764371” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. 101 Reporters[/caption] The development comes after the divers from Indian Navy had retrieved the dead body of a miner on Friday, officials said. According to the Navy officials, the second body was detected 280 feet inside the mine in the state’s East Jaintia Hills, by the Indian Navy diving team. Earlier on Friday, one body recovered from the mine at Ksan near Lytein River in East Jaintia Hills. A total of 15 miners were trapped in the illegal mine in Lumthari village since December 13 last year, when water from the nearby Lytein river flooded the mine. Since then, a multi-agency rescue operation is underway to evacuate the miners. On 21 January, the Centre and the Meghalaya government told the Supreme Court that operations to rescue the miners trapped in a rat-hole mine in the East Jaintia Hills district of the state will not be abandoned. The assurance on the part of the administrations came a day after the Indian Navy had decided to suspend efforts to pull out the decomposed body of a miner that it spotted on 16 January.