From Our Correspondent
TURA: Coming close on the heels of last year’s coal mine tragedy in South Garo Hills in which thirteen miners lost their lives, another accident occurred on Tuesday afternoon in which three miners were killed in the same district’s Era Aning village.
The three coal miners were killed on Tuesday afternoon when the cables of the crane that was being used to lift the earth soil from the mine reportedly snapped plunging the heavy machinery back into the mine shaft and crushing to death the miners.
Two other miners who received injuries in the accident were brought out to safety and rushed to a hospital for treatment.
The new mine, which was being operated by one CD Sherpa, was in the process of been deepened to reach the depth where the mineral could be extracted, when the incident occurred.
The deceased have been identified as AK Ashraful Hoque, Rofiqul Islam and Matu Sheikh.
South Garo Hills Deputy Commissioner CP Gotmare informed that one of the bodies have been recovered while two others remain trapped inside as relief operations got bogged down due to the monsoon rains that have been lashing the region almost every day.
Police have registered a case against the mine owners under Section 304 of the IPC.
This is the second major mine mishap in Garo Hills in less than a year resulting in the death of several coal miners. In July last year, around fifteen miners were buried alive inside their coal mine at Nengkol quarry in Rongsa Awe area of Nangalbibra when they accidently broke open a wall of a nearby abandoned coal mine which was filled with several hundred cubic meters of water from a nearby stream.
The government pressed into service a specialized rescue team of the National Disaster and Rescue Force (NDRF) which tried in vain for several days to try and reach the miners.
The search was ultimately called off after poisonous gases were detected inside the mine and the water level failed to go down despite several pumps being pressed into service to pump out the water which continued to flood the insides of the coal mine.
The bodies were never recovered.
The mine was sealed and the mine operator Gurdeep Singh along with the Nokma who gave permission for the mine to be operated was arrested by police for negligence.