Survivor recounts harrowing escape from deadly mine collapse in India

A survivor of a coal mine disaster in India has shared a harrowing account of the moments after the tunnel was suddenly engulfed by water.

Ravi Rai was working in the mine in the north-eastern state of Assam on Monday morning when water entered the pit.

"We were holding on to a rope in 50-60ft (15-18m) deep water for at least 50 minutes before being pulled out," he said.

Rescuers are racing to save the miners trapped in the flooded mine in a remote area in Assam. Officials say one body has been recovered and according to reports, two more are feared dead. Six others are believed to still be trapped in the mine.

Mr Rai, who is from Nepal, says he was working inside a so-called "rat-hole" mine - a narrow hole dug manually to extract coal - when water suddenly started flooding in.

Such pits are narrow, often dug just wide enough for one person to extract coal. Miners climb down narrow shafts, sometimes using ropes or ladders, leading to horizontal tunnels where coal is extracted.

"We were working inside the mine and water entered suddenly. We don't know from where [the water came]... We ran to save our lives. We were then hanging by a rope in some 50-60 ft deep water," he said.

For almost an hour, he and some others were hanging by a rope attached to a crane, and Mr Rai says there were moments when he feared they wouldn't survive.

"We [slipped] back into the water again, but we managed to escape," he says.

Local media reports say more than a dozen miners managed to escape from the tunnel but no official figure has been given yet.

Despite his injuries, Mr Rai is relieved to be safe. However, his colleague, also from Nepal, remains among the trapped.

"My family has still not come [to the site] - I don't think they've been informed yet," he said.

The accident occurred on Monday, when nine men were trapped inside the mine in the hilly Dima Hasao district after water from a nearby unused mine suddenly gushed in, according to reports.

The navy has deployed deep-sea divers and teams to rescue the trapped miners and pump out water from the mine, while the army has sent helicopters, engineers and divers to assist in the rescue, ANI news agency reported.

Officials say high water levels in the mine have posed significant challenges to the rescue and recovery operation.

HPS Kandhari, a senior official in the National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF), said it was difficult to estimate the duration of the operation.

"It is very difficult to get inside the water, there's hardly anything visible and we don't know what is inside," he said.

Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that the flooded mine appears to be illegal.

The police is investigating the case and a person has been arrested, he said.

India banned so-called rat-hole mining in 2014, but despite this, small illegal mines continue to operate in Assam and other northern and north-eastern states. Accidents are not uncommon here.

Six workers were killed in January 2024 after a fire broke out in a rat-hole coal mine in Nagaland state.

In 2018, at least 15 men were trapped in an illegal mine in Meghalaya after water from a nearby river flooded it.

Five miners managed to escape, but rescue efforts for the others continued until March of the following year. Only two bodies were recovered.

Additional reporting by Dilip Kumar Sharma in Guwahati

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