R Kharmujai

SHILLONG, Jan 4: Brian Dermot Kharpran Daly, who has discovered more than 1,700 caves  in Meghalaya, on Friday said the coal mining disaster in Meghalaya could have been prevented if the state mining policy was in place.
At least 15 miners are trapped inside the rat-hole coal mine, which are on the lateral side of main shaft since December 13. 
“We have heard of such coal mining disaster in the past. But the government is still not serious at all to come up with a mining policy to regulate mining activities and prevent such disaster,” the founding member of Meghalaya Adventurers’ Association said.
Daly, who has discovered more than 1,700 caves and mapped nearly 1,000 of them so far, strongly believes that the 15 miners trapped inside the flooded coal mine have “perished”.
“… My impression and belief is that there is no question of rescue because the miners inside would have died in two minutes after the water gushed inside those rat-hole mine,” the  Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Awardee said.
“We must understand that these miners are not trapped in a flooded cave like those boys in Thailand where they could find higher grounds. But these miners are trapped in a two-feet or maximum four feet man-made tunnel known as rat-hole digging coal,”  Daly explained.
“If they were trapped in a cave, we would definitely go to the site and try to help them with our expertise. But this is something else. These people have no chance …. We don’t have the expertise to go inside that tunnel to pull out the bodies,” he added.
Daly, who discovered India’s longest sandstone cave at 24, 583 metres in length in Meghalaya said, “Even the specialized divers from the Indian Navy will not be able to crawl those rat-hole mines with their cylinders and their equipment as those holes are only two feet or maximum four feet high in that flooded mine.”

“Basically, I don’t see how the Indian Navy can help anything at the moment,” Daly said suggesting the Meghalaya government to immediately conduct a study on the flow of the Le-tein river in the mining area.

“They have been pumping out the water from shaft for more than two weeks but the volume of water in the shaft did not recede. If the water is gushing from other abandoned mines and is flowing into the mines where the miners are, I think the water should have receded,” he further explained.
“They should put their head and mind together to study the flow of this river. I am sure there will be indications in some part of the river if the water is flowing into the mines in the form of whirlpool or in some other form. If this water is seeping into the mines then they must sort it out at the upper stream or divert the river,” Daly said.  

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Kenter Joya Riba

(Managing Editor)
      She is a graduate in Science with post graduation in Sociology from University of Pune. She has been in the media industry for nearly a decade. Before turning to print business, she has been associated with radio and television.
Email: kenterjoyaz@easternsentinel.in / editoreasternsentinel@gmail.com
Phone: 0360-2212313

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