Over 100 hours have passed and 13 miners are still trapped in an illegal coal mine 370 feet deep in the state of Meghalaya, India. The rescuers pumped out water, but this yielded no results as yet.
The mine is located in East Jaintia Hills district of Meghalaya. The NDRF personnel (National Disaster Relief Fund) were called in, however they failed to fish the miners out. The ONGC mining staff was called back to make way into the pit.
Due to heavy flooding it has become tougher for authorities to locate them, water is being pumped out continuously from the mine. Over 100 personal are at the site. Scuba divers and boats were summoned to the region.
The muddy water and coal dust is dampening the rescue operations. There is no navigation map of the mine, or the count of chambers in there.
This is a rat hole mine, the mines are dug by locals and coal is pulled out from a narrow and horizontal layer.
The mine was operating illegally, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) banned such unscientific and unsafe rat-hole coal minings in 2014.