india

Updated: Jul 13, 2019 08:18 IST

The Supreme Court on Friday allowed the Meghalaya government to call off one of India’s longest rescue operations to retrieve the remains of 13 coal miners who were trapped in an illegally operated rat-hole coal mine at Khloo Ryngksan in East Jaintia Hills district since December 13 last year.

The mine had flooded after water from a nearby river gushed into it trapping 15 miners. Rescuers could find only two bodies.

Meghalaya’s attorney general Amit Kumar who pleaded before the apex court for formal cessation of operations said, “The Supreme Court allowed the application and permitted the state to close the operation. All other prayers including compensation have been given up by the petitioner.” The petitioner, Delhi-based lawyer Aditya N. Prasad had filed a PIL in January against the Centre for failing to rescue the miners.

But even as the Supreme Court wanted to close the case, a request was made by the senior counsel of the petitioner for “laying standard operating procedure to be followed for future similar situations across India”. On this issue, the case has been adjourned for four weeks Kumar added.

Rescue operations had begun on December 14.

Rat-hole mining involves digging of narrow tunnels, usually three-four feet deep, for workers to enter and extract coal. The horizontal tunnels are barely big enough to fit just one person.

Despite a massive search and rescue operation by multiple agencies including the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), Indian Navy and the Army among others, except for two bodies, none were traced because even as the mine was being continuously drained daily, water would flood the maze of mines again by the next day.

High power pumps, an underwater remotely operated vehicle (UROV), ground penetrating radar to trace breaches into the mine were pressed into service but to no avail. Over 250 personnel were involved in the rescue operations. Over 108 crore litres of water has been pumped out till cessation of operations.

Alor read: Meghalaya mine: Rescue suspended due to rains, flood

On June 7, operations had to be stopped with the water level increasing by 8 feet submerging all the generator sets, pumps, pipes and other materials.

Stranded at the site were personnel of the NDRF and SDRF and it was only due to the untiring effort of two youths of the area, Meba Sukhlain and John Suba who trekked through a mountain that food and other essential supplies were able to reach the rescue teams, FM Dopth the deputy commissioner of the district told HT over phone.

Though a final calculation of the cost incurred so far is yet to be ascertained, sources say around Rs 4 crore has been spent while indicating that it could increase. The state government had sanctioned an interim relief of Rs 1 lakh for the next of kin of each miner.

Families of the trapped miners had given their consent to call off the search and rescue operations in May, following which chief minister Conrad Sangma had said the state government would appeal to the Supreme Court to permit calling off the operations as they are “becoming increasingly difficult and have not yielded desired results.”