JOWAI: The body detected in the ill-fated rat-hole coal mine at Ksan, where 15 miners are trapped since December 13, continues to remain where it was located on Wednesday evening with no decision forthcoming whether it should be retrieved, even after 48 hours.
The Indian Navy’s underwater remotely-operated vehicle (ROV) located the body about 210 feet inside one of the lateral shafts — rat holes — and later pulled it to about a hundred feet closer to the mouth of the hole where it has since been.
The Navy left it there awaiting the administration’s direction on whether it was to be pulled out since it was in a highly decomposed state and parts of it were falling off at the touch by the ROV.
From the image of the body captured by the ROV, experts also subsequently concluded that it was in a highly decomposed state and parts of it had already “disengaged.” Any further attempt to pull it could lead to its “total disintegration,” the experts said.
A decision was due on Friday, but nothing happened.
After the body was detected, the district administration invited families of three trapped miners from nearby Lumthari village and those of two others from Chirang district of Assam. However, only four turned up — two from Lumthari village and two from Assam-on Thursday. They failed to identify the body from the ROV’s image, but made it be known they wanted the bodies of their kin.
