‘I felt a body with my right hand’: In depths of darkness, divers have little luck rescuing men trapped in Assam rat hole mine

After at least six search and rescue attempts by divers from the Indian Navy, the National Disaster Response Force, the State Disaster Response Force, Special Forces and the Army on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, the body of only one of the miners, Ganga Bahadur Srestho, was retrieved by divers from the 21 Para Special Forces on Wednesday morning.

Divers from the Special Forces who retrieved the body told The Indian Express that the first challenge was the depth of the water – approximately 100 feet – inside the 310-feet deep central pit of the mine, and the complete lack of visibility.

Indian Navy men prepare their equipment to rescue workers who are trapped inside a coal mine in Assam. (Photo: AP)

“We cannot see anything, and we have no map, scale or blueprint of the mine. We have to feel our way inside. The pit is conical and narrows as we go further down. On Tuesday, divers had searched half of the area at the bottom of the pit. On the first dive on Wednesday, while searching the second half, I felt a body with my right hand,” said the diver who retrieved the body.

At the bottom of the pit, tunnels or ‘rat holes’ branch in different directions, which is where the miners work.

“The body we retrieved was in the central pit, which is why we found it. But there are no other bodies there now. Neither can we enter the tunnels, nor do we know how many such tunnels are branching out from the central pit,” said another diver.

While the divers’ efforts are at an impasse, the other crucial element of the operation – pumping out water from the mine – has not yielded any results.

Series of setbacks

Since Monday, two local motorised pumps have been working to drain out water from the pit. However, the water level has remained at approximately 100 feet. In fact, a member of the Special Forces said that after a night of dewatering, when the water level was measured on Thursday morning, it had increased by 6 inches.

On Wednesday, a heady-duty motor pump from ONGC was brought to the site to aid in the dewatering, but it could not be deployed because it was not submersible. On Thursday, an even more powerful pump – capable of pumping out 2,250 litres of water per minute – from Coal India Limited was airlifted from Nagpur and arrived at the site.

Chief Executive Officer of the Assam State Disaster Management Authority Gyanendra Dev Tripathi said diving operations will be suspended to conduct 24 hours of uninterrupted dewatering to assess whether it will be able to aid in the operation.

Rescue workers standing around a coal mine where at least nine workers were trapped in Assam. (Express Photo)

“Even with the best possible resources, we have found only one body. Even though dewatering operations have been taking place, the inflow of water has been more than what we are pulling out. We do not know for certain if even with this pump, the pace of dewatering will be more than the flow. Once we pump out the water for 24 hours, we can assess if dewatering will succeed and if this is a sustainable strategy, and plan the next step,” he said.

Rescuers still do not know the source of the water that has flooded the mine. Tripathi said, “One possibility is that there is some rainwater stored which was reached and cut while mining and which is flowing in. This is more manageable. The second is that there are a number of groundwater tables in hills and one may have changed course, which is common in this area. This would mean a continuous replenishment of the water.”

He said that the ASDMA is carrying out drone mapping of the area to also begin dewatering of nearby mines surrounding this one.