Supreme Court on Thursday expressed its dissatisfaction with the rescue efforts to trace the 15 miners who are trapped in an illegal coal mine in Meghalaya's East Jaintia Hills district for 22 days now.

A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice SK Kaul said "dead or alive, they should be taken out".

The top court was hearing a petition that sought directions to the Centre and state government for adequate manpower and equipment for rescuing the trapped miners.

#Meghalayaminers: Supreme Court tells Meghalaya government that we are not satisfied with the rescue operations. 15 miners are trapped in an illegal flooded coal mine in East Jaintia Hills since December 13 last year. pic.twitter.com/DvXuAawxrc

ANI (@ANI) January 3, 2019

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court had agreed to hear a public interest litigation filed by lawyer Aditya N Prasad.

In his petition, Prasad had said the Centre and the state government must be asked to use the expertise of the Indian Army, Indian Navy and the Indian Air Force in the rescue operation.

On Thursday, the court also asked why wasn't the Army ordered to join the rescue operation.

Meanwhile, fire fighters of Odisha Fire Services and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) on Wednesday resumed the rescue operations, but the water level is still high and it is not clear if divers would be able to find the trapped miners.

(With inputs from Hemanta Kumar Nath)