Six workers in Meghalaya’s East Jaintia hills district were killed in an accident when they were working in a coal mine.
Sources said all the coal mine workers hailed from Karimganj district of Assam and were digging a tunnel on late Thursday evening in one of the coal mines near Rymbai village.
The six coal mine workers fell into a 150 feet deep after the machine, which they were using to dig the tunnel, broke apart.
The bodies were retrieved on Friday morning and were sent to the Community Health Centre in Khliehriat in East Jaintia Hills district for post-mortem examination.
E Kharmalki, deputy commissioner of East Jaintia hills district said the accident happened at a coal mine at Sarkari near Rymbai village.
Four of the six coal mine workers have been identified, and their respective family members have been informed for claiming the bodies, Kharmalki said.
The identified victims are from the Ratabari area in Assam’s Karimganj district.
They are – Mokbul Hussain, Ali Hussain, Dilwar Hussain, son of Makmodur Rahman and Jilal Uddin, son of Majaid Ali, all from Jalalabad village under Ratabari police station in Karimganj district.
Meghalaya, which is blessed with huge reserve of coal, had earned bad name after 15 miners were trapped in a mine in Ksan in East Jaintia Hills district on December 13, 2018.
The miners were trapped inside the coal mine at a depth of around 370 feet after a tunnel was flooded with water from the nearby Lytein river.
While five miners had managed to escape, operation to rescue the remaining 10 was discontinued in March 2019. Even the bodies of the miners could not be retrieved.