Villagers claim several trapped in Jharkhand coal mine; none found

Lcal people on Thursday claimed that several persons are feared trapped in an abandoned coal mine in Jharkhand's Dhanbad district after it collapsed during illegal mining, but none was found during a rescue operation, officials said.

The alleged incident occurred in Chanch Victoria colliery area of Bharat Coking Coal Limited.

The BCCL authorities launched a rescue operation in the abandoned mine but none was found during the four-hour search till 8.30 pm when they stopped the exercise.

"There was no casualty," General Manager of Chanch Victoria colliery area, AK Dutt, said.

It is not clear whether the search operation will continue on Friday.

A BCCL spokesperson said the information of an incident at an abandoned coal mine in Chanch Victoria colliery area at Nirsa, 45 km from here, has been received in the morning but there is no confirmation that people got trapped there.

Local villagers had claimed that an area including a village road collapsed in the morning due to illegal mining and several people who were there at that time are feared trapped.

Following that, a BCCL rescue team from Dhanbad was pressed into service at around 4.30 pm to look for any trapped person there.

Though entering an abandoned mine is illegal, local people with rudimentary safety equipment frequently go inside such mines to find coal, leading to accidents.

Dhanbad Sub-Divisional Magistrate Prem Kumar Tiwari, who was at the spot along with other administrative and police officers during the search operation, said that there is no sign of anyone being trapped and none came forward to say that a family member is stuck in the mine.

Earlier, panic gripped Dumrijor village in Chanch Victoria colliery area under Chirkunda police station where a road caved in.

Following the subsidence, traffic movement in the area was affected while the power supply was also hit.

Dutt, the GM of Chanch Victoria colliery area, said that he got information about the subsidence from the local administration.

“The spot would be filled up soon. A similar incident had occurred last week too,” he said.

Police and CISF personnel in large numbers have been deployed around the abandoned mine.

Former Nirsa legislator Arup Chatterji who reached the spot just after the incident said that as per locals, "about 50 to 60 people were engaged in illegal mining when the incident occurred."

However, the current MLA, Aparna Sengupta, said so far there is no report of anyone trapped. In February, five people had lost their lives in an ECL abandoned mine collapse at Gopinathpur in Dhanbad during illegal mining and the government had formed a special investigation team to probe the incident.

At least 24 lives were lost in incidents related to illegal mining at Nirsa in the last four years, officials said.

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