44 days on, bodies of 5 more workers recovered from flooded Assam mine

Bodies of five workers, who were missing in a flooded Assam coal mine since last month, were recovered on Wednesday, capping a 44-day multi-agency search operation in the 300-feet quarry, officials aware of the matter said.

- Utpal Parashar

Personnel from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), the Indian Army, the Indian Navy, and the state police were camped at the site of the illegal coal mine in the Dima Hasao district since January 6 as they looked to trace the trapped workers. Earlier, four bodies were recovered from the mine.

"Bodies of all five workers who were missing for the last 44 days were found on Wednesday by rescue workers from NDRF," Indian Army and other agencies after the water level in the mine, which is around 300-feet deep, came down to nearly one foot," Simanta Kumar Das, deputy commissioner of Dima Hasao, said.

He said that the bodies were highly decomposed, adding that they will first be sent to Umrangso and then to the civil hospital at Halflong, the district headquarters, where post-mortem examinations and DNA analysis for identification will be conducted.

"Today, the dewatering of the Umrangso mine was completed to a level where retrieval operations could be launched. The mortal remains of the remaining five miners have been recovered and brought up from the mine shaft.