Rescuers were hoping for a miracle Wednesday as they tried to reach more than a dozen coal miners trapped for weeks in one of India’s notoriously dangerous “rat hole” mines, according to reports.

“It all depends on [the] almighty if the miners can be rescued,” one distraught official told ABC News. “Pray for us.”

The group of 15, believed to be teenage boys, went to work at the illegal pit in Meghalaya on Dec. 13 and became stuck underground when a shaft collapsed.

Chances they survived are slim after flash floodwaters from a nearby river rushed into the mine over the weekend.

“Only God’s grace and some miracle can help them to be alive,” Kyrmen Shylla, Meghalaya’s disaster management minister, told Reuters.

About 100 rescue experts camping out at the site have been hampered by the floods and lack of sophisticated equipment.

The old, so-called “rat hole” mines are illegal but common in the northeastern state.

Workers, often including children, descend hundreds of feet on bamboo ladders to dig out the coal, which is then pulled out from narrow, horizontal seams.

With Post wires