INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
rat-hole mine collapsed in Meghalaya's East Jaintia Hills, trapping 15 people underground, the Indian Air Force has finally come forward to
Kirloskar Brothers -- an Indian heavy equipment firm -- has offered to expedite the rescue operation by sending powerful pumps to draw water
from the pit, and a team of experts from state-run Coal India Limited is being rushed to the spot to oversee the exercise.However, things
are looking a little too bleak already
Divers detected a foul smell emanating from the pit today, giving rise to fears that it could be from that of decomposing bodies below
Rescue operations had to be suspended for a brief period earlier this week after low-capacity pumps being used since the accident on
December 13 proved incapable of drawing water from the pit faster than the rate at which it was being flooded by a nearby river.The
low-capacity pumps had to be shut down because they were found to be ineffectual, officials with the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF)
-- which is carrying out rescue efforts in cooperation with state agencies -- said
They now hope that the private firm's pumps, besides more such equipment being sourced by Coal India from its mines in West Bengal's Asansol
and Jharkhand's Dhanbad, will do a better job at draining the illegal mine in the coming days.Sources in the Air Force said it decided to
cooperate after receiving a request to this effect from the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA)
water level in the mine falls from 70 to 40 feet
"This is one of the most challenging operations in the history of our organisation
Our divers are not trained for a situation of this magnitude," said SK Shastri, who is leading the 1st battalion of the NDRF.The crisis took
a political turn earlier this week, with main opposition Congress alleging that Chief Minister Conrad Sangma had handled the crisis in a
Party president Rahul Gandhi also taunted Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a tweet, accusing him of posing for photographs while the miners
remained trapped in precarious conditions.Mr Sangma said it was not prudent to "play politics" on such a sensitive issue
"There is no question of calling off the rescue operation, it is only going to be taken up at a different level now
The Union home ministry is in touch, and will be helping us
We will continue with our rescue efforts efforts," he told TheIndianSubcontinent.Critics, however, maintain that the state government did
little to expedite the rescue mission in the initial days
Sources say nearly a week had passed before the East Jaintia Hills administration sent a letter requesting the Sangma government for
acquiring powerful pumps, and yet another went by before Coal India received a request for aid.Mining was banned across mineral-rich
Meghalaya in 2014 after environmentalists raised concerns of groundwater pollution
However, that did not deter local residents from illegally extracting coal on the sly through rat-hole mines, which involves digging into
the side of hills and then burrowing horizontal tunnels to reach coal seams.
