Assam: Three coal miners trapped inside illegal mine for third day

Three people remained trapped inside an illegal rat-hole mine in Assam's Tinsukia district for the third consecutive day on Monday as efforts continued to rescue them, officials said.

Tinsukia District Commissioner Swapneel Paul said that apart from local authorities, NDRF and SDRF have been engaged in the search and rescue operations to find the miners.

"The three coal miners are still missing. One team each from the NDRF and SDRF, and local rescue workers are trying to locate the missing miners. Excavators are being used to dig the rubbles," he told PTI.

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Among those trapped is Dawa Cherpa from Bhojpur in Nepal and two workers are from Meghalaya, identified as John and Fenaal," he added. 

In total, four coal workers were engaged in the work of procuring illegal coal from the rat-hole mine, the official said. 

"Three of them went inside the mine and the fourth one was assisting in coal transportation. Suddenly, a landslide occurred, which trapped the three workers inside the mine. "It has been suspected that they died inside the coal mine but we cannot say it until we get their bodies," the official said. The administration is carrying out a rescue operation at the moment and several agencies are being called in to assist, he added.