My son must be dead, mother of trapped Meghalaya miner

GUWAHATI: Omar Ali of Magurmari village in Meghalaya's West Garo Hills district started venturing into illegal coal mines of the state when he was 20 years old. He has been on the job - digging out coal from 'rat hole' mines - for the last 10 years to support his family of six after his father's death. But on December 13, when Omar went into a quarry in the Ksan area of Lumthari village in East Jaintia Hills district, he ran out of luck and got trapped there along with 14 others. Two of his cousins are among those stuck there for 22 days now.
"He had the responsibility of looking after his family following his father's death. He was looking for a job and one day this man, Moi Hussain, turned up at our village. He gave all the youth a lucrative offer but did not tell what kind of job it was. Omar was one of the first ones to go and he was earning about Rs 30,000 to Rs 40,000 a month," Sabbar Hussain, another cousin of Omar's who did not take up Hussain's job offer 10 years ago, told TOI from his home. "I did not quite like the idea of going inside underground holes and I found a job here," he said.

Sabbar added, "In the last 10 years, Omar could marry off his two sisters with the money he earned by working in the mines. He has another sister, a brother and mother at his home now. He was planning to buy a plot of land and build a house."

A shattered Omela Bibi (60), Omar's mother, said her son left home for the mine along with his cousins, Shirapat (25) and Raziul (16), on December 1. "All of them must be dead by now...it's been 22 days. Five days ago, we were told that the government will bring out the bodies...I am still waiting. We don't know if the government will help us," she added.

Efforts to rescue trapped miners not effective: SC

The Supreme Court on Thursday said efforts to rescue the 15 miners trapped in an illegal mine in Meghalaya have not been effective and asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta to apprise the court of steps taken so far to bring them out on Friday.

“It is a question of life and death of the 15 coal miners who are trapped in the Ksan area of Lunthari in East Jaintia Hills of State of Meghalaya for a number of days,” judges AK Sikri and S Abdul Nazeer said, while hearing a PIL filed by New Delhi-based advocate Aditya N Prasad, seeking the court’s intervention in effective rescue operations.

Since December 13, the miners are trapped in one of the numerous illegal mines in the Ksan area of Lumthari village in Meghalaya’s East Jaintia Hills district after water gushing in from the nearby Lytein river flooded the quarry. The water level of 370 ft has been a major hurdle for the divers to go in.

The judges said Meghalaya advocate general has submitted that adequate steps have been taken for the rescue of these miners. “However, this court is of the opinion that still prompt immediate and effective operation is required to rescue these miners and for this reason we have requested Mr. Tushar Mehta, learned Solicitor General of India, to look into the matter and apprise the court about such steps, ” the judges said in their order.

The petitioner, through his PIL, demanded engagement of expert teams of the Army, Navy and Air Force in the rescue operations. The PIL said the rescue operation has been suspended due to lack of equipment, especially high horse-power water pumps, to remove water from the mine shafts. Rescue teams from State Disaster Response Force and National Disaster Response Force were pressed into service immediately after the tragedy but there was no headway. The situation remained unchanged until December 29 when a multi-agency operation was launched with divers from the Navy.

On the 22nd day after the tragedy on Thursday, rescue teams are yet to make any progress. The water level is stated to be still high, despite pumping out gallons in the last few days.

Operation spokesperson R Susngi said the teams would wait and watch the situation on Friday. High-powered pumps of fire service of Odisha were used to pump out water but the water level kept rising simultaneously. Divers are waiting for the water level to go down to at least 100 ft from its current level of 160 ft.