Navy divers have detected a body of one the miners trapped in a flooded illegal mine in East Jaintia Hills, Meghalaya. The operations began a month back to search and rescue these 15 miners trapped in the deep coal mine.
The body located in the mine was still to be identified. It was brought up to the mouth of the rat-hole mine and would be fished out in consultation with doctors. The body was detected by underwater drones at a depth of nearly 160 feet inside the 370-foot-deep mine.
Close to 200 rescue personnel from various departments like the Indian Navy, Coal India, the National Disaster Response Force, Odisha fire service and private pump manufacturer Kriloskar got involved in the search operations.
The government also got in the National Geophysical Research Institute, the National Institute of Hydrology and other private research institutes to help with the search and rescue.
On December 13th 2018, 15 miners went down into the narrow mine and were trapped after water from a nearby river flooded the mine. Rescue workers are struggling to pump out water from the depths of the mine.
Earlier the Supreme Court of India also pulled up the Meghalaya government over slow rescue operations.