Pumping of water continues in Meghalaya’s coal mine site

Pumping of water from the main shaft and nearby old shaft continued on Sunday as part of the operations to trace the 15 miners trapped inside a coal mine at Khloo Ryngksan in Meghalaya’s East Jaiñtia Hills district.

Spokesperson for the rescue operations, R. Susngi said the Kirloskar has been pumping water from the main shaft from Saturday evening from 5 pm to 11 am on Sunday with a break of one hour for refuelling. The quantity of water discharged was 15,30,000 litres.

However, no significant change or receding of water level in spite of several lakhs of litres pumped out.

The Coal India Limited (CIL) ran their pump in the adjacent old shaft from Saturday evening at 5 to 11 am on Sunday and the total discharge of water was 19,27,800 litres.

The Odisha Fire Service started their pump at 11 am in the old shaft, and used their pumps to deliver water pumped by the CIL to the stream.

The CIL work in the new old shaft was in progress.

KSB, a company from Germany based in Pune also worked at the site to help the rescue operation.

The Indian Navy also operated their ROV in the main shaft.

East Jaiñtia Hills Deputy Commissioner,  FM Doph said the new teams arrived at the site on Sunday along with their equipment.

The teams include Dr. Devashish Kumar; Senior Scientist of CSIR-NGRI, Hyderabad and his team; Dr. Niraj Kumar, Scientist Gravity and Magnetic Group and his team; Jayanti Gogoi of GPR, Vineet Upadhyay, ROV team LCAP Chennai and his team, and Dr Sudhir Kumar Singh G of the National Institute of Hydrology, Roorkee.

Doph said the teams have placed their logistics requirement to the district administration and they will start their survey and operation prevalent to their field of expertise on Monday.