Guwahati: A day after the death of six Assam workers in rat-hole mining in Wokha district, surviving miners said they were carrying out coal mining operations 400 feet below the ground in Ruchan village, situated close to the Assam-Nagaland border.
Policemen from Bhandari apprehended two owners of illegal coal mining from Ruchan village, while two others from Assam are absconding. The incident has yet again exposed the rampant illegal coal mining in Nagaland, which is claiming the lives of marginalised migrant workers and also causing losses to the state government exchequers.
Worryingly, this is not the first incident where workers died in a rat-hole coal mine in Nagaland. In May 2019, four migrant miners were killed due to a mudslide in a rat-hole mine in Yonglok village of Longleng district in Nagaland. Yet again, in March 2021, four migrant mine workers died in a rat-hole mine in the Atuphumi area under the Mangkolemba sub-division.
K. Soriso, the additional superintendent of police, told EastMojo that the Bhandari police arrested two mine owners, Moyithung Tungoe and Tsenchamo Mozhui. “Based on a suo moto complaint filed in the Bhandari Police Station of Wokha district, we arrested the two illegal coal mine owners. The other two accused, Azgur Ali and Saiful Ali, who are from Uriamghat in the Golaghat district of Assam, are absconding. The illegal mining operation on top of a hill was run in a partnership between the accused persons,” Soriso added.
All the victims hail from Sonapur village in Uriamghat town of Golaghat district in Assam. The deceased persons have been identified as Majibul Ali (46), Kamal Bahadur Chetri (47), Dol Bahadur Chetri (44), Bishal Thapa (28) and Kharka Bahadur Chetri (60). The injured persons are Santosh Chetri (23), Ramesh Chetri (36), Bhupen Rajbangshi (34) and Loknath Chetri (27). Soriso said the injured persons are being treated in a private hospital in Dimapur.
The Wokha District Administration announced an immediate relief of Rs 1 lakh per victim.
Mojibur Rahman (50), a migrant worker from Uraimghat in Golaghat district of Assam, was among the first to reach the deep end of the illegal mine in Ruchan at about 5:30 PM. Speaking to a local media outlet, Rahman said that he tried several times to climb down, but toxic fumes from inside the mine prevented him from reaching out to the victims for at least four hours after the incident. “Some of us kept trying to find the workers. Even when we tried, the fumes inside the mines would force us out. Between 5 PM and 5:30 PM, we finally managed to reach out to the injured and brought them to safety,” Rahman added.
It was unclear when the government rescue teams reached the site, but Rahman and others told the local media channels that the incident happened between 1 and 1:30 PM. One of the mine owners who hails from Ruchan village, told EastMojo that he heard a loud noise at about 1.30 pm while tending to his farm. “I immediately rushed to the site. Thirteen people were working in the mine when I heard the explosion, resulting in the death of six workers while four others sustained injuries,” he added.
The mine owner further stated that the workers were paid Rs 1,400 per ton of yield.
Bhandari Police officials investigating the case say that a short circuit in a generator set used for coal mining led to a fire. “However, we are probing all the angles in this case,” a police official from Bhandari said on the condition of anonymity. Thungdemo Tungoe, the Ruchan Village Council Chairman who visited the site, issued a statement to the local press. He claimed that the malfunctioning rock breaker used by the mining might have caused the incident. “From what we saw, there was a short circuit in the rock breaker which led to the fire in the generator set and the injured workers might have been suffocated by the toxic fumes of diesel,” Tungoe said.
Expressing his helplessness, Achumbemo Kikon, the Naga Peoples’ Front MLA from Bhandari where Ruchan village falls, said he had notified the government several times about the illegal coal mining operations in his constituency but there was no action from the Nagaland government. “There is rampant illegal rat-hole mining happening in my constituency. This is taking a toll on the lives of the poor people. We want the state government to address this issue urgently and put a stop to it as it is a loss of peoples’ resources,” Kikon told EastMojo.
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According to sources in Kohima, Nagaland Chief Minister, Nephiu Rio has constituted a committee to investigate rampant illegal mining in the state consisting of officials from mining and geology, deputy commissioners and Nagaland police officials.
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