Installing pumps is the biggest challenge: Odisha team leader

SHILLONG: At the end of his first day on Saturday at the ill-fated coal mine here, where 15 miners are trapped since December 13, the one question that Chief Fire Officer of Odisha Fire Service grappled with was, “how?”
“Our biggest challenge is how to install the pumps inside the main shaft of the mine,” Sukanta Sethi told The Shillong Times over phone.
Sethi is leading a team of 21 that arrived at the site on Saturday. They have also brought with them 10 high-power submersible diesel pumps.
He said he has asked for buckets – the ones that take miners down — to hold the pumps inside the shaft. “The buckets have to have holes,” he said. He said each of the buckets could hold one pump and at a time at most two buckets could be placed inside the shaft. “The pumps have to be lowered to a depth of around 20 feet in the water,” he said. The water in the shaft is about 70-foot deep.
He was also concerned about the smoke that the diesel pumps would emit in the narrow confines of the shaft.
“There is the question of carbon dioxide… there are several other factors too to consider,” he said while emphasising, “it will be a very difficult job.”
Sethi said the team would be working in a rat-hole mine for the first time. “We have worked in coal mines in Odisha, but those are open cast mines and easier to handle,” he said.