Meghalaya mining tragedy: Indian Navy, NDRF retrieve body of one of 15 miners, over 40 days after they were trapped

After a period of over 40 days since 15 miners were trapped in an illegal coal mine in Meghalaya, a body of one of them has been retrieved from the site at East Jaintia Hills on Thursday afternoon. The unidentified body has been sent to a civil hospital for postmortem. The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) along with India Navy divers launched a search operation at 9 am on Thursday, which continued till afternoon, reported CNN-News18.

#NewsAlert – Body of one miner retrieved today. The first body was retrieved after 41 days. #MeghalayaMineTragedy | @karishmahasnat with more detail pic.twitter.com/5bKpdIooW3

— News18 (@CNNnews18) January 24, 2019

On 17 January, the Indian Navy had recovered another body of a miner from a depth of more than 200 feet. According to News18, the rescue teams detected the body with the help of an underwater remotely-operated vehicle (ROV). On their Twitter handle, the Indian Navy clarified that the body has been pulled upto the mouth of rat-hole mine and will be extracted only under the supervision of doctors.

Meghalaya: Operation continues to rescue the miners who have been trapped in a mine at Ksan near Lyteiñ River in East Jaintia Hills, one body has been recovered. The miners are trapped since 13th December. #meghalayaminers pic.twitter.com/trqWsHmzwc

— ANI (@ANI) January 17, 2019

More from India

‘Make in India’ Rafales: MoD begins review of Rs 2 lakh crore fighter jet proposal Nari Shakti sets sail: 10 women officers from 3 forces on historic voyage around the world

The Indian Navy, however, abandoned all efforts on 21 January to pull out the decomposed body of the miner. At least 15 miners are trapped inside the mine since 13 December, 2018 after one of them accidentally punctured the wall of the mine, leading to its flooding. “The navy today (Sunday) suspended the pulling of the remains, which they had been trying since yesterday (Saturday) evening, as too much disintegration (of the body) took place with every pull by the ROV jaw,” operation spokesperson R Susngi said. The families of four of the 15 miners urged the rescuers to retrieve the decomposed body so that they could perform the last rites.