District administration seeks help of Coal India Ltd, Director of Land Records     

Shillong, June 5: The East Jaintia Hills district administration is following up with Coal India Limited, Guwahati for supply of additional pumps to dewater the mine in the district where five coal labourers are trapped.

East Jaintia Hills Deputy Commissioner E. Kharmalki said on Saturday that the combined rescue team of NDRF and SDRF   along with the district administration and in consultation with local experts is exploring the possibility of the first mine shaft being connected with another mine shaft which is 270 meters away (aerial distance).

As per the NDRF report, the nearby second shaft is 330 feet deep and the depth of underwater is around 152 feet.

As far as the depth of the water is concerned, there is a likelihood that the two shafts may be connected with one another by the same underground tunnel, the deputy commissioner said.

The district administration has also written to the Director of Land Records to send a survey team to study the water level of the two shafts with respect to the ground level as done earlier in the case of Ksan incident.

Additional 200 KVA Gen Set arrived at the incident site to augment the power back up as more pumps are being in the process to be installed and technical persons were engaged in fitting the additional pumps and in mobilising control panels to commission the 200 KV gen set.

The deputy commissioner said that in continuation of the rescue operation taken on Friday, the rescue teams of NDRF and SDRF arrived at the incident site to commence the operations around 9.15 am and the team verified the level of the water before resuming the dewatering process and found that the level receded to around twenty feet from the level of the previous day but could not ascertain whether the receding is due to pumping or natural seepage of the water as there was no rain on Friday.

Around midday, water pumps were replaced with another one and dewatering resumed.