{"id":54924,"date":"2019-01-17T18:21:45","date_gmt":"2019-01-17T12:51:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/?p=54924"},"modified":"2019-01-17T18:30:35","modified_gmt":"2019-01-17T13:00:35","slug":"meghalaya-coal-mine-disaster-month-since-15-miners-got-trapped-navy-spots-one-body","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/india-news\/meghalaya-coal-mine-disaster-month-since-15-miners-got-trapped-navy-spots-one-body\/","title":{"rendered":"Meghalaya coal mine disaster: After month since 15 miners got trapped, Navy spots one body"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Over a month after 15 mine workers were trapped inside an illegal rat-hole mine that got flooded\u00a0 with Lytein river waters in <a href=\"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/topic\/meghalaya\">Meghalaya<\/a>\u2019s East Jaintia Hills, the Indian Navy today (Thursday, Jan 17) spotted a body more than 200 feet inside.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne body detected by Indian Navy divers using underwater ROV at a depth of approx 60 feet and 210 feet inside a rat-hole mine,\u201d the Indian Navy spokesperson tweeted.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/MeghalayaMineTragedy?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#MeghalayaMineTragedy<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Flash?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Flash<\/a> One body detected by Indian Navy Divers using Underwater ROV at a depth of approx 60 feet and 210 feet inside a rat-hole mine <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SpokespersonMoD?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@SpokespersonMoD<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DefenceMinIndia?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@DefenceMinIndia<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/nsitharaman?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@nsitharaman<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PMOIndia?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@PMOIndia<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/sP1sv6ikRn\">pic.twitter.com\/sP1sv6ikRn<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 SpokespersonNavy (@indiannavy) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/indiannavy\/status\/1085737702941544449?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 17, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>A joint rescue operation involving local workers, <a href=\"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/topic\/ndrf\">NDRF<\/a> and Indian Navy among others, with some equipment flown in from outside the state, has been on at the illegal mine, which was flooded on December 13 trapping the workers.<\/p>\n<p>The body has been located after 20 days since the multi-agency rescue operation began only on the 16th day of the incident.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, the Navy operated ROV has found a dead body,\u201d additional deputy commissioner SS Syiemlieh, East Jaintia Hills, was quoted as saying by The Hindustan Times (HT).<\/p>\n<p>An underwater Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) is a tethered underwater mobile device operated by a crew either aboard a vessel or floating platform or on proximate land. They are submersible, robotic systems, used to observe the depths of large bodies of water by operators from shore or by divers in the water. The Navy team is reported to have deployed five ROVs for the operation.<\/p>\n<p>Another tweet by the <a href=\"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/topic\/indian-navy\">Indian Navy<\/a> said: \u201cThe depth is 160 feet (and not 60 feet) and the body has been pulled up to the mouth of rat-hole mine and shall be extracted out of the mine under the supervision of doctors.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur divers are trying by hit and trial in uncharted mines. At least, we&#8217;ve established they&#8217;re in this area. The operation will continue until we get orders to stop,\u201d said Captain DK Sharma, the navy&#8217;s spokesperson.<\/p>\n<p>The mine is located on top of a hillock fully covered with trees. To reach the mine, a person has to pass the 30-foot wide Lytein river three times, said a NDTV report. No habitation was found nearby and 80-90 illegal coal mines dot the area.<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, the water level inside the more than 350-feet deep mine remains same, even as several litres of water has been pumped out till now with effective high power pumps. Ten 63 Horsepower pumps were brought in by the Odisha Fire Rescue team that were made operational with much difficulty. The underwater ROV used by Indian Navy had also got stuck inside the mine several times.<\/p>\n<p>The slow progress in the rescue efforts in Meghalaya has been contrasted with the dramatic rescue of 12 Thai boys and their football coach from a flooded cave in July last year, which drew a massive international audience.<\/p>\n<p>The tragedy took place on December 13, 2018, when a group of labourers went down the rat hole coal mine, not apprehending the danger. While four of them managed to survive, 15 others remained trapped as river water gushed inside.<\/p>\n<p>The few survivors provided vital clues in establishing where the miners could be. Anxious family members had since been waiting for news \u2014 some of them who visit the site daily are even helping in the rescue operation.<\/p>\n<p>The NDRF team, along with help from SDRF and civil administration, was the first to start the rescue operation the next day of the incident. However, because of lack of available resources and heavy duty pumps, work was stalled after a few days.<\/p>\n<p>The NDRF had ensured that there was no one in the main shaft of the mine though it was impossible for the Navy and NDRF divers to go to the desired depth without a drop in the water level to at least 30 metres. Without a map or blueprint, the greatest difficulty was to ascertain where the miners could be and in which direction inside an unregulated and unscientific mine.<\/p>\n<p>The Supreme Court last week pulled up the state government for its inaction against illegal miners while saying that rescues efforts must continue.<\/p>\n<p>The top court asked the Centre and the Meghalaya government to take help of experts and continue efforts to rescue the miners. \u201cCarry on with your rescue efforts, what if all or at least some are still alive? Miracles do happen,\u201d a bench headed by Justice AK Sikri said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over a month after 15 mine workers were trapped inside an illegal rat-hole mine that got flooded\u00a0 with Lytein river waters in Meghalaya\u2019s East Jaintia Hills, the Indian Navy today (Thursday, Jan 17) spotted a body more than 200 feet inside. \u201cOne body detected by Indian Navy divers using underwater ROV at a depth of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":54927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1497],"tags":[63764,1224,7471,18497],"yst_prominent_words":[63745,63752,63743,63742,63747,63737,63751,63741,63748,63738,63750,63755,63753,63744,63754,3705,63739,63749,63740,63746],"ppma_author":[140543],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/d2r2ijn7njrktv.cloudfront.net\/apnlive\/uploads\/2019\/01\/17182029\/Meghalaya-coal-mine-rescue-Navy.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":140543,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"apnnewsdesk","display_name":"APN Live","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/478eacb893eda88aa6ed8d99b005bf58?s=96&r=g"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54924"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54924"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=54924"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=54924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- html is corrupted -->