New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday asked the government to carry on with its efforts to rescue the 15 miners trapped in a rat-hole mine at Ksan in East Jaintia Hills district since December 13.
A bench of justices AK Sikri and S Abdul Nazeer also asked the Centre and the state government to take help of experts.
At the same time the bench also asked what the government was doing about persons operating illegal mines and the officials who allowed them to go on. At this point the petitioner’s advocate Anand
Grover submitted a 52-page document giving details of the tragedy.
Grover submitted that due to lack of coordination and also some hurdles which are being faced by the teams of persons which are working on the site, the desired results are not coming out. He submitted a note giving various suggestions to assist the rescue operation.
At least 200 rescuers from multiple agencies are involved in the rescue operations, the state government counsels said. They are trying to drain out water from the flooded mine, but Navy divers on Thursday found no change in the water level in the rat-hole mine to resume search operation, officials said.
The court was told that reputed institutes like National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI),
Hyderabad, National Institute of Hydrology (NIH), Roorkee and some other private research institutes including Planys Technology, Chennai are being associated with the rescue operation. It is stated that these institutes are capable of mapping the mines which would go a long way in redeeming the situation.
The court was told that though underwater rovers are available, these are to be airlifted and in this regard Air Force can do the needful.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta assured that all the suggestions made in the note would be taken into consideration and will be acted upon in whatever manner possible.
The case will come up for hearing on January 18. The state legal team was headed by Advocate General Amit Kumar.
