Three coal miners trapped inside illegal rat-hole mine in Assam

Guwahati: The state administration on Sunday launched an operation to rescue at least three coal miners, trapped inside an illegal rat-hole mine in the terrains of Patkai hills in Upper Assam’s Tinsukia district. Informing that workers were trapped following a landslide, authorities said that incident took place on Sunday in an unauthorised mine.

The authorities engaged in rescue operation said that the mishap took place around 12:30 am at the illicit Tikok West mining site, nestled between Bargolai and Namdang, situated under the Tikok colliery in Ledo.

Confirming the incident authorities said, “Three coal miners are trapped inside the illegal rat-hole mine after the landslide in Patkai hills. Among those trapped is Dawa Sherpa from Bhojpur in Nepal and two workers are from Meghalaya, identified as John and Fenaal.”

In total, four coal workers were engaged in the work of excavating illegal coal from the rat-hole mine, the authorities said.

Three of them went inside the mine and the fourth one was assisting in coal transportation. Suddenly, a landslide occurred, which trapped the three workers inside the mine, sources said and feared, “It has been suspected that they died inside the coal mine but we cannot say it until we get their bodies.”

The administration has launched a rescue operation with the help of several other agencies of coal India.