SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, Nov 18: The Dhanbad administration, after inspection of mines subsidence in the Kapasara outsourcing project in Mugma Colliery Area of Eastern Coalfield Limited (ECL) on Friday morning around 40 km away from district headquarters, said that no casualty has been reported.
The local villagers claimed the incident occurred around 6 am and over 50 hired labourers were engaged in illegal mining at that time. After the incident, some of them fled the spot while many were feared being trapped under debris.
However, the coal company officials and local police officers ruled out that any person is trapped in the mines. The colliery area is declared a danger zone.
Local people, who live in nearby basti of the colliery, said that the surface of the mines caved in with a loud sound where illegal mining was being done. But even after 6 hours after the incident (till noon), no rescue operation had started to search if any person is trapped inside or not.
Nirsa SDPO Pitamber Singh Kherwar and Nirsa police station officer-in-charge Dilip Yadav denied the possibility of anyone being trapped there.
ECL Mugma Area general manager Vibhash Chandra Singh did not receive calls from media persons and no other officer of the colliery reached the spot to assess the damage.
Notably, this is the second major mining collapse incident due to illegal mining in the last 10 months in the Kapasara colliery of the Mugma area. Earlier on February 1, five persons including a woman died in a similar incident.
Locals said since the illegal coal syndicate had engaged and hired outsider labourers from the Jamtara and Purulia districts of Bengal for illegal mining, it is impossible to know how many are trapped inside.
The Nirsa circle officer (CO) Amrita Kumari on the directive of deputy commissioner (DC) Sandip Singh visited the subsidence spot of the colliery and after inspection from all corners found no damage in the incident.
“Incident occurred but there is no report and trace of casualty as well as damage in it,“ she said.
Moreover, CO also told media persons that ECL management has been directed to initiate all measures so that such an incident does not take place in the future again.
The coal company officials who did not visit the spot in the morning arrived at the incident site after inspection by the district administration and got the subsidence area cordoned off by ribbon for the safety of people.
“After the incident entire abandoned mines area is being cordoned off and step is being initiated to stop illegal mining,” said Manoj Kumar, manager of Kapasara Colliery.
