SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, April 21: A situation of panic prevailed after a raw road caved in Dumrijor village in Chanch Victoria colliery area of Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL) under Chirkunda police station around 45 km away from Dhanbad district headquarters on Thursday morning.
Police officials said the incident occurred around 7.30 am. With a loud sound, the road caved in around 50 feet radius. No casualty was reported in the incident.
Following subsidence traffic connectivity between five villages in the area has been affected. The power supply was also affected as one electric sank in it.
After getting information from SDPO Pitamber Singh Singhmar, Chirkunad police station officer-in-charge Jitendra Kumar reached the spot and assessed the incident.
SDPO Pitamber Singh Singhmar told media persons that there is no report of life and property damage in it.
Chanch Victoria area general manager AK Dutt said that he got information about road subsidence from the local administration. “The spot will be filled up soon. Last week a similar incident had occurred,” he said.
However, villagers alleged that due to illegal mining, the road caved in. Several people were engaged in illegal mining when the incident occurred. Police and CISF personnel in large numbers have been deployed around abandoned mines.
First MLA Aparna Sengupta, who represents the area, said that she sent SDPO, the Chirkunda police station officer-in-charge and her party works on the spot but there is no report of trapping any villagers in it.
“After getting the information, I left for Chirkunda from Ranchi to assess the situation,” she said.
However, former Nirsa MLA Arup Chatterji who reached the spot just after the incident said he did not see any sign of trapping. “But villagers said that on the nearby road, 50 to 60 persons were doing illegal mining when the incident occurred and may 30 to 40 persons may have been trapped in it.
Notably, on February 1, five villagers had died during illegal mining in the area.
