Bodies of five workers, who were missing in a flooded Assam coal mine since last month, were recovered on Wednesday, capping a 44-day multi-agency search operation in the 300-feet quarry, officials aware of the matter said.
Personnel from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), the Indian Army, the Indian Navy, and the state police were camped at the site of the illegal coal mine in the Dima Hasao district since January 6 as they looked to trace the trapped workers. Earlier, four bodies were recovered from the mine.
“Bodies of all five workers who were missing for the last 44 days were found on Wednesday by rescue workers from NDRF, Indian Army and other agencies after the water level in the mine, which is around 300-feet deep, came down to nearly one foot,” Simanta Kumar Das, deputy commissioner of Dima Hasao, said.
He said that the bodies were highly decomposed, adding that they will first be sent to Umrangso and then to the civil hospital at Halflong, the district headquarters, where post-mortem examinations and DNA analysis for identification will be conducted.
“Today, the dewatering of the Umrangso mine was completed to a level where retrieval operations could be launched. The mortal remains of the remaining five miners have been recovered and brought up from the mine shaft. The process to identify the remains has been initiated,” chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said in a post on X.
The five missing workers were earlier identified as Hussain Ali (30), Zakir Hussain (38), and Mustafa Sheikh (44) all from Darrang district of Assam; Sarpa Barman (46) from Korajhar district in Assam; and Sanjit Sarkar (35) from Jalpaiguri district of West Bengal, based on the information from other labourers and the families of the untracked workers.
“We got a call from the Dima Hasao district administration on Wednesday informing us that my son’s body was found. It’s been a long wait, but we feel a sense of closure as well since we will now be able to conduct the last rites,” said Krishnapada Sarkar, father of Sanjit Sarkar.
Earlier, the bodies of three Assam residents — Ligen Magar (27) from Dima Hasao district, Khushi Mohan Rai (57) from Kokrajhar district, and Sarat Goyary (37) from Sonitpur district — and 38-year-old Nepal resident Ganga Bahadur Shrestha were recovered from the quarry.
On January 6, around 40 workers entered the mine located in the far-flung district of Assam dotted with many such crude operations, where functions are unregulated and labourers often work without safety equipment. The workers likely struck a source of water that flooded the mine, officials familiar with the matter said, adding that while most of them managed to escape, some remained stuck.
“Initially, there was speculation that the number of those trapped could be more than nine. But we were contacted by families of only nine missing workers. After 44 days, there’s no possibility of other workers or bodies remaining inside,” Das said.
The search operation was suspended days after it began after authorities appeared unable to reduce the estimated 100 feet of water in the mine, with officials suggesting that an underground aquifer was constantly inundating the main pit and the tunnels that branched out. Officials maintained that it was imperative to first drain the mine to reach the workers, who they said might be trapped behind debris in a web of underground tunnels, known colloquially as outlawed rat hole mines, as the divers were finding it difficult to search for them in the mucky waters with zero visibility. Authorities eventually pressed in high-intensity pumps, which helped them reduce the water levels.
“Efforts to dewater the mine and find the workers were going on continuously. On Tuesday, NDRF divers tried to go down to the bottom of the mine but failed to get the bodies. When the water level decreased further on Wednesday, rescue workers were able to detect the bodies and recover the five bodies,” Das added.
The presence of multiple rat hole mines connected to the main quarry also hampered the rescue efforts. Rat hole mines, named because their tunnels are just big enough for workers to get through, were once used extensively in northeastern states. They consisted of narrow pits in the ground, usually meant for one person to go down. The coal was usually placed in boxes that were hoisted to the surface with pulleys. In some cases, miners carried coal in baskets up on wooden slats flanking the walls of the mines. They were banned in 2014 because of the large number of fatalities and the damage caused to the environment but still continue to be used in violation of rules.
In January, the CM said that the mine was earlier run by the state’s mines and minerals department but was abandoned 12 years ago. He added that around 220 similar mines were operating in the area as authorities initiated efforts to seal the illegal quarries.
On January 16, the Assam cabinet constituted a judicial inquiry and a Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe into the mishap, and the police have arrested 11 people in the incident.