SHILLONG: The Indian Navy underwater remotely-controlled vehicle (UROV) on Wednesday captured the image of a human body in the rat-hole mine at Ksan in East Jaintia Hills district where 15 miners are trapped since December 13, giving the ongoing rescue operations a major boost.
The rescue operations completed 34 days on Wednesday.
The ROV captured the image during its foray into the shaft of the ill-fated mine, sources said. However, there has been no official confirmation.
“Yes, there has been such a detection,” a source said, unwilling to elaborate immediately.
The Shillong Times contacted the Navy’s Visakhapatnam-based Eastern Command PRO, Captain C G Raju, for confirmation. He is on leave, but said he would confirm. However, several subsequent calls to him on his mobile phone went unanswered.
Other sources said pictures of the image taken from the ROV’s monitor had already been sent to families of some victims of the mine mishap.
The ROV had a few days back entered a lateral shaft but did not detect anything there.
Sources said the ROV had been unable to work freely as the two submersible pumps installed in the mine came in its way; it had got entangled at least on two occasions, the last being on Sunday night.
The pumps were taken out a couple of days back thus allowing the ROV free space to work.
The Chennai-based Planys Technologies has also brought in an ROV, which is smaller than the Navy’s, but it is yet to be deployed.
The detection came on a day when the government said it could take a call on whether to continue the rescue effort after getting feedback from experts engaged in it.
The rescue operations, which started the day after the mishap, completed 34 days on Wednesday.
Earlier, speaking to reporters after a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Deputy Chief Minister Preston Tynsong said that the Chief Minister, Conrad Sangma, and Home minister, James Sangma, were briefed about the ongoing operations.
He said the district administration and the concerned department will hold discussions with the experts again in the next few days.
To a question if the state government is exploring the possibility to cease the rescue operations given that these have not thrown up any result even after more than a month, Tynsong said that quite a number of experts have been engaged by the state government who are doing their best and until and unless the government gets their views it cannot say anything.
He, however, said that once the government has the views of the experts it can accordingly even file an affidavit in the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court, which is hearing a PIL on the rescue operations, has asked the authorities to continue with the effort while stating that miracles could happen.
The rescue operations began on December 14 with the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) sending a team from Guwahati. As the days wore on, more agencies, including the Indian Navy, joined the fray. Over the past few days, experts from renowned institutes like Roorkee-based National Institute of Hydrology and the Hyderabad-based National Geophysical Research Institute with assorted gadgets have also come in to assist the operations.
