By Thomas Arbenz
I followed the mine disaster in Litein valley from the day the news out in the media. The issue has been troubling me for various reasons and I have been looking at it from different angles, following different lines of thought. Drifting off and coming back to them kept me troubled and with more reports and more aspects hitting the front pages with more social media comments spreading fast, some kind of frustration kicked in – in the end I decided to write it down – possibly for my own peace of mind.
Why am I concerned? I have been on the Nongkhlieh Ridge and in Litein Valley many times over a period of seven years. I have explored its caves, walked and mapped the whole area, visited the villages, know people, have friends. And I saw how a lovely, peaceful valley was transformed into a dusty, scarred wasteland – saw how a clear stream full of life was turned into a deadly, acidic sewer.
The unquestionable facts are tied to the site of the coal mine and the rat-hole type of mining. These mines follow a very simple concept: You dig a vertical shaft down through the caprock until you reach the coal seam. The shaft is large enough to create sufficient operating and winching area at the bottom, but not larger than need be. The coal at the bottom of the pitch is extracted and then serious mining starts: Horizontal tunnels are hacked into the coal seam, which is between 2 and 4 feet thick – miners are working laying flat out, on their knees or stooping low using pick axes and shovels, and simple handcarts. Only coal is extracted and the tunnels spread out like spokes from the central hub, then interconnecting galleries are dug sideways never getting higher than the thickness of the seam. The labyrinthic network of low passages spreads wider and wider.
Now an accident happened perhaps because the miners struck water. Perhaps they broke into an abandoned mine, flooded by the last monsoon rains; it may be that they struck an underground stream or the nearby Litein river or that they dug onto the water table. The effect was that the mine flooded, water rushing through the tunnels, reaching the main shaft, flowing into the other tunnels, filling them up and then backing up in the main shaft, rising to nearly valley floor level. Nobody present inside the mine stood a chance to survive.
13, 15 or 17 miners have been trapped inside – killed by the flood. The news spreads, people rush to the site, hoping for survivors. Information is passed to the local authorities then on to the district level. Officials in charge assess the situation thinking how to organize a rescue or rather a recovery of the bodies.
At some point the media get the information and the news hits the headlines. Facts are scarce but the potential for a story is huge: there is disaster and drama, blood, sweat and tears. Some reporters are dispatched to the site, others just write up bits and pieces at their desks. What is published in the following days is far from objective and balanced but a mixture of fragmented facts, picked-up gossip, wrong information and alleged expertise.
Nobody really knows how the accident has happened, how many people were inside the mine – the exact location remains unclear, the circumstances too, but the information is passed nevertheless; printed for the sake of the story.
The accident happens in troubled times where activists and miners fight each other, set up by whoever has an interest in keeping the kettle boiling. It is hard evidence of illegal mining still going on despite the official ban, clandestinely and well hidden from the public eye behind Nongkhlieh Ridge and in the hinterland south and east of Khliehriat. Officials, rulers, even governmental key persons are part of it and crores of money is involved. The first response from those people is to keep everything at low profile, to hush it up and put a lid on it. Then, confronted with public pressure, coal barons and politicians come forward with statements, attempting to profile themselves but in fact just underlining their helplessness and ignorance. Because the fact is that a large number of miners have died in an illegal mine before and nobody really knows how to deal with the problem in a decent way and with respect for the people who have perished and for their families.
Outrage spreads and suddenly a question is aimed at an international audience. Why was there such a huge response and international support with cave divers flown in to rescue those boys in Thailand trapped in a flooded cave, and now nobody cares about these miners trapped in a coal mine in Meghalaya? The answer is simple, and it hurts: the two situations are as different as they can be and not at all comparable. In Thailand there was a good chance to get some, if not all the boys out of the cave in time and alive. In Meghalaya there wasn’t. Apart from the mine having been completely flooded in a very short time with no chance of survival, no diver in his right mind would dive further than the bottom of the main shaft. Getting into a flooded maze of low and narrow tunnels in black, coal slush saturated water with zero visibility would be suicidal.
What remains is pumping. Emptying the flooded mine and recovering the bodies. Pumping must have started right away; the miners have pumps and they are loyal to each other, so they help. But the pumps are small, designed to deal with seepage occurring in every mine. But the sheer amount of water is humungous. More powerful pumps are needed. So the NDRF is called in. The process is slow, bureaucracy comes in the way of speedy decisions. The situation has to be assessed; officers have to add their expertise without really knowing how to handle it – always with the pressure of the media and the “public opinion” hounding them. Most of them are out of their depth, still somehow trying to cope. Time is running out – but then time has actually never been an issue. The slow progress becomes understandable – but some questions need to be answered and mistakes made known, because there will be a next time: So, why have pumps to be transported from as far away as Pune and why does an Airforce Commander have to say “… personnel will be airlifted to Guwahati”? Why not to Shillong? And then why not straight on to Litein Valley? Why does a technical director think that “the first task is to try to get the map of the illegal coal mine”? But there never is a map if it comes to an illegal coal mine.
In the meantime, the accident is exploited by politicians, NGOs, interest groups and individuals of every colour, left and right. To make a point, to raise a voice, to gain advantage to save face.
Now, as the beast becomes huge, self-centered, and uncontrollable, let’s just hope that despite all this there are still some humans who will be there to hold the hands of the grieving families and help them along to live their lives without their fathers, brothers, and husbands.
And still I hope that I have been badly mistaken and the miracle happens.
(The writer is a speleologist and avid caver)