Although the Indian Navy has spotted one body of the trapped miners from the ill-fated coal mine at Ksan in Meghalaya’s East Jaintia Hills district, it is highly unlikely that the bodies could be retrieved.
“The visuals provided by the Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) of the Indian Navy showed that the body has sign of decomposition. Experts are of the opinions that all efforts to retrieve the same will lead to a total disintegration,” said the bulletin issued by the rescuers on Thursday evening.
The East Jaintia Hills Deputy Commissioner on Thursday invited the family members of the three miners from Lumthari and two miners from Assam’s Chirang district to view the video provided by the ROV.
The rescuers today pulled the body up to 100 feet from 210 feet position originally detected from the shaft and many body parts have started to disengage. Rescuers said that the relatives present today would furnish their views by Friday.
Meanwhile, the pumping of the water by the Fire Service Odhisa and the Coal India Limited were on and both the agencies have pumped out approximately. 43,09,200 litres of water in the last 19 hours. The Plenys-Chennai Technolgy, who had joined the rescuers recently operated their ROV and also carried out a sonar mapping of the shaft and detected one rat hole.
The team from the Geophysical Institute also surveyed the main shaft to understand the geological scenario. The NDRF provide assistance to other agencies with all the resources available.
A total of 15 miners got trapped inside the coal mine when the mine got flooded on December 13. The rescue operation which was started immediately by the NDRF and SDRF was joined by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), the Fire Service Odisha and the Indian Navy.