Second body of missing miners pulled out

A Correspondent

SHILLONG: After nearly a month of retrieving the first body from the illegal coal mine in Ksan, East Jaintia Hills district, rescuers on Wednesday finally had another success, when a second body was recovered.

It may be mentioned that 15 miners went missing since December 13 last year when an illegal rat-hole mine got flooded.

According to rescuers, the body was detected by the Navy’s underwater remotely operated vehicle (ROV) on Tuesday evening.

“The miner’s body was detected by the ROV yesterday evening. The body was handed over to the police at about 2 pm today for further investigation and necessary action,” rescue operation spokesperson R Susngi said.

“It was a painful exercise as they had to slowly pull out the body as the flesh started tearing off when the ROV tried to get a grip on it,” the official said, adding that efforts are on to pull out the third and fourth body which were spotted on Saturday and Monday.

Officials are yet to identify the body.

It may be mentioned that the first body was detected on January 16 and the victim’s body was retrieved on January 24.

The body of the first miner was identified as that of Amir Hussain from Chirang district of Assam.

Rescuers said that so far five bodies have been detected of which two were retrieved.

The Supreme Court, which is monitoring the rescue operations, has told the government that the trapped miners must be taken out of the mine, “dead” or “alive”.

Also read: Meghalaya News