Relatives of at least 15 Indian miners trapped in a “rat-hole” mine for 18 days on Monday said they have given up hope that any of them would be found alive, even as rescue operations were stepped up.
“We want his body back so that we can give him a decent burial,” said the uncle of 26-year old Omar Ali, one of the trapped miners.
The miners were trapped on Dec. 13, when an illegal mine in the northeastern Indian state of Meghalaya, was flooded.
Thousands of workers, including children, have been killed in so-called rat-hole mining, which involves miners crawling into narrow shafts on bamboo ladders to mine for low-quality coal, in Meghalaya.
The state banned unregulated mining in 2014, but it still goes on in some places.
A survivor of the disaster, Sayeb Ali, 24, said he too thought there was little chance of anyone coming out alive.
He said that 17 miners were trapped in the accident. It was not clear why his figure differed from the government account of 15 miners.
Sayeb Ali said he survived because he was not deep inside the very narrow mine shaft when disaster struck.
“The people who were digging coal went deep inside and cart-pullers like me and the other four who survived were about 8 to 10 feet [2.4m to 3m] inside,” Sayeb Ali, who is not related to Omar Ali, said by telephone.
Officials said the navy on Sunday sent 15 divers with cameras and specialist equipment into the mine in an attempt to reach the bottom of the pit.
The remotely controlled probe was the latest initiative in the increasingly desperate search for the men.
“The problem is there is murky water that entered the rat-hole pit from a nearby river,” Santosh Kumar Singh, an official with the National Disaster Response Force, told reporters.
Authorities have been struggling to pump out water from the 115m deep mine so that divers can approach the area where the men are believed to be.
“The navy will commence diving again once the water level is brought down,” East Jaintia Hills District Deputy Commissioner Federick Dopth told reporters.
Rescuers said there has been no sign of life, but insist it is still possible the miners might have found an air pocket.
Additional reporting by AFP
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of