GUWAHATI, Feb 19: The decomposed body of one of the five remaining miners trapped inside the flooded coal mine at Umrangso in Assam’s Dima Hasao district was recovered today (Feb 19). Rescue workers are reportedly in sight of another body with efforts being made to pull it out from the coal mine located at 3 Kilo in Umrangso.
The identity of the body, which has been badly decomposed, could not be established as of now.
While nine miners were trapped inside the coal mine when water suddenly entered into it on the morning of January 6, the bodies of four miners were recovered after several teams were pressed into service to either rescue the trapped miners alive or to pull out their bodies from the mine.
After today’s recovery, four miners still continue to be trapped inside with absolutely no hope of any one of them surviving the tragic incident.
The Assam Government had already paid Rs 10 lakh ex-gratia to the families of the four persons whose bodies were earlier found while Rs 6 lakh was paid to the kin of each of the five missing miners with the remaining 4 lakh of the Rs 10 lakh compensation to be paid later.
An SIT was also constituted to probe into how the incident took place while eleven persons were arrested for their involvement in running the mine illegally.
