Assam coal mine tragedy: Four bodies recovered, search underway for five trapped miners amid dwindling hope for survivors

The death toll from the coal mine disaster in Assam’s Dima Hasao district has gone up to four following the recovery of three more bodies on Jan 11 five days after they got trapped.

Rescue and search operations are still underway as five miners remain trapped in the flooded rat-hole coal mine in the area, with authorities sparing no efforts to locate them though the chances of their survival are slim, officials said.

The operation was launched on Jan 6 after a sudden surge of water from an abandoned, waterlogged mine breached the active site, trapping nine workers around 300 feet below the surface.

Indian Army, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), and specialized teams from Coal India, face significant challenges in the rescue and search operation, officials said.

High-capacity pumps have been deployed to dewater the mine, and water levels have been reduced by more than half. However, the narrow, unstable tunnels and the risk of further collapses have impacted the progress.

While the search for the remaining miners continues, the Dima Hasao police have made another arrest in connection with the incident. Abdul Ganan Laskar was recently arrested in addition to Punish Nunisa, who was taken into custody earlier this week.

Superintendent of Police Mayank Kumar stated that both men were operators of the mine involved in the incident.

The mine, which Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma initially called "prima facie illegal," later clarified it as an abandoned mine.

Sarma on Jan 10 said that the mine had been run by the state government’s Assam Mineral Development Corporation (AMDC) but had been abandoned 12 years ago.

“It was not an illegal mine but an abandoned one,” Sarma said, adding that the mining operation during which the incident occurred was being conducted illegally.

Dima Hasao, known for its extensive coal, limestone, and granite quarrying activities, has coal reserves in Umrangso that have been leased by the AMDC, according to the national daily report.

Meanwhile, the incident has sparked political controversy. Opposition parties have raised concerns about how illegal mining activities could have been conducted without the knowledge of local authorities. Assam Congress leader and Lok Sabha MP Gaurav Gogoi wrote to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging him to order the constitution of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the incident and the persistence of rathole mining, despite a ban by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in 2014.

“The SIT should not only look into the illegal operation of the mine and identify those responsible for this tragedy, but it must also address the broader issues at play. This includes the failure to enforce the NGT’s ban on rathole mining, and the complicity of local authorities – including the district administration and district police – who have enabled these illegal activities to persist despite repeated accidents and warnings.” Gogoi wrote.

“The SIT should also examine safety standards and working conditions in these mines, which are consistently ignored, leading to deadly incidents. The investigation should expand its scope to identify and map out other illegal mining sites across Karbi Anglong, Dima Hasao, and Upper Assam, where these activities continue unabated,” he added.

The Congress party has also alleged the involvement of Debolal Gorlosa, the Chief Executive Member of the Dima Hasao Autonomous Council, in illegal mining activities.

Gorlosa, a leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been accused along with his wife. The Dima Hasao district, a tribal-majority region, operates under the 6th Schedule of the Indian Constitution, with a limited autonomous council. Two members of the district Congress unit have filed a police complaint against Gorlosa.

Superintendent of Police Mayank Kumar was quoted as saying that a case had already been registered in connection with the mine incident, and that two individuals had been arrested. Kumar added that the complaint against Gorlosa was still under inquiry and had not yet been formally registered as an FIR.

Gorlosa dismissed the allegations as a “political attack.”

He said, “The allegations are by Congress people, they are trying to target me and the BJP. The court had banned rathole mining so many years ago, if someone has gone and entered the mine illegally, what is the government’s fault in this? The inquiry is happening, we are not stopping it.”

To a question about the allegations against Gorlosa, CM Sarma said, “It has not come up in the investigation. This is a human tragedy, we should not politicize it.”