New Delhi: Despite making progress on Saturday in lowering the water level at the flooded coal mine in Assam and recovering three more bodies, rescuers continued to face impediments and setbacks in draining the rest of the water on Monday. Five miners are still missing and search for them is on. According to officials, the water from an aquifer located closeby has filled the quarry yet again, an Hindustan Times report said.
On January 6, almost 40 workers had entered the mine at 3 Kilo in Dima Hasao district illegally, when water flooded the quarry, probably after they struck an underground source. About 25 workers managed to escape the nearly 300-feet deep mine. However, at least nine got stuck. In the past week, the bodies of four trapped workers have been recovered.
GD Tripathi, CEO of Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA), reportedly said that they have been dewatering the mine with the help of nine traditional pumps. Even though the water level went down in the beginning, it has not reduced since Saturday. He added that apparently, the water is entering the mine from some nearby source.
6 more pumps brought from Guwahati
On Monday, six additional pumps were brought in from Guwahati. By evening, three of them had been installed and were functional, while the installation of the remaining three is still in progress. Once all are in place, as many as 15 pumps will be used to help lower the water level. Besides these, six other pumps are in operation to dewater nearby mines from where water is apparently entering the one where the accident took place.
Although a heavy-duty pump from Coal India Limited, having the capacity to pump 2,250 liters of water every minute, was flown in on Thursday by the Indian Air Force from Nagpur, it is yet to be used at the site.
Earlier, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) officials had said that the water level in the quarry, around 100-feet initially, had dipped by 18.1 metres. As of Saturday evening, around 11.9 meters of water was still present in the mine.
