The remains of one of the 15 labourers who have been trapped in an
illegal coal mine that collapsed in Meghalaya’s East Jaintia Hills
district on December 13 was extracted on Thursday, a top rescue official
confirmed to The Indian Express. An official statement on the same from
the district administration of the East Jaintia Hills is awaited.
In a joint operation conducted by the Indian Navy and the National
Disaster Response Force, the remains — now disintegrated according to
officials — was pulled out of the main shaft of the mine at around
3pm. The personnel who entered the mine, packed the remains and brought
it out.
The official spokesperson of the rescue operation R Susngi said the
body was “fully intact” and that this was the same body which was
earlier detected by the Navy. Another senior rescue official, however,
said the face was “not recognisable instantly” and “completely
disfigured”.
Last week, a dead body was detected inside the disaster-struck coal
mine — at a depth of 160 feet and at a lateral distance of 210feet into
the rat-hole tunnel — with the help of footage from a remote-controlled
underwater vehicle operated by the Indian Navy.
The official said the body was recovered from over 183-feet air
column and about 170-feet water column (total of about 355 feet
vertically depth) in the main shaft and about 210-feet horizontal
distance in the rat-hole tunnel.
Susngi said both inquest and post-mortem were conducted by
authorities following which the body was taken to the Khliehriat
community health centre for identification by families.
The body being “intact” is viewed as an achievement of the rescue
personnel against the apprehensions of decay and disengagement as the
Meghalaya government had told the Supreme Court. In a status report, the
government said that as a consequence of efforts to pull the
disintegrating body, “there are signs of decay, making the evacuation of
the body difficult”.
“In the process of pulling the body, the skull, the left wrists and
the leg from the knee level got disengaged. It is the considered opinion
of the Naval team that if the body is pulled further, there will be
total disintegrating of different parts, rendering the same virtually
impossible to retrieve,” the report said.
The status report added that “presumably” the bodies of the at least
14 other miners are behind this disintegrating body which was detected
on January 16.
Chief minister Conrad Sangma had also told the press last week that
it did not “look like” that rescuers would be able to retrieve the body.
He explained that it is not possible to retrieve the body because of
two reasons — first, the ROV which had detected it cannot pull it out
because the body is too heavy for it and that is difficult for rescue
divers to enter the mine as the water level has not reduced despite
intensive pumping. Secondly, Sangma added, the body was decomposing.
“The body is soft. Every time they are trying to pull the body, some
pieces are coming out,” he said.
