M A I N   N E W S

Contact established with miners

DHANBAD, Feb 4 (PTI) — In a dramatic turn of events, Navy divers today established contact with miners trapped in flooded Bagdihi colliery since Friday noon and were said to be safe, Coal India sources said.

“Hum sub thik hai (all of us are fine)”, shouted the miners to the divers, the sources said.

The five divers, flown in from Mumbai today succeeded in reaching the miners at 4.30 p.m. after searching for an hour and a half, the sources told PTI.

The divers went into the mine at 2.00 p.m. and emerged with the word that they had managed to establish contact, the sources said. They, however, could not specify if all 38 miners, including two officials of Bharat Coking Coal Limited’s colliery, were alive after 56 hours inside the pit.

The divers entered the mine through Jairampur colliery’s pit number five.

More divers had been requisitioned from Visakhapatnam, who were expected to reach Dhanbad around midnight, CIL sources said in Kolkata.

The Navy divers re-entered the mine at 3.00 p.m. after being on the ground for 10 minutes.

A medical team comprising 12 doctors had also entered the pit with medicines and blankets.

Coal India Limited Director (Technical) N.K. Sharma, Superintendent of Police, Abdul Gani Mir and Deputy Commissioner Vinode Kispota, were also at the pithead.

On Friday, a 10-member rescue team had attempted to reach the flooded mine but abandoned its efforts due to lack of oxygen.

Yesterday morning, the rescue team with gas masks made another abortive attempt to establish contact with the miners who included two officials — manager A K Upadhyay and assistant manager P R Singh.

Chief Minister Babulal Marandi had to cut short his visit to the disaster site yesterday after police used lathis to keep at bay miners and relatives of those trapped who were protesting the slow pace of rescue operations. They also demanded that guilty officials be “hanged”.

Accident ‘could have been’ averted

DHANBAD, Feb 4 (PTI) — The disaster at the Bagdigi mine, of Bharat Coking Coal Ltd (BCCL), could have been averted had the mine authorities not reduced the thickness of the underground barrier which failed to withstand the water pressure from the adjoining mine, mining experts said.

The experts, after studying the underground plans of the Bagdigi mine, said the thickness of the barrier, between Bagdigi and adjacent Joirampur mines at the Lodna area, was reduced to 60 feet from 80 feet possibly to extract more coal.