Body of one of 15 trapped Meghalaya miners found by naval divers

The body has been brought to the mouth of the rat-hole mine and the rescue operation continues, Navy officials said

Navy divers on Thursday found a body in an illegal rat-hole coal mine in Meghalaya's East Jaintia Hills where 15 miners were trapped since December 13, officials said.

"One body detected by Indian Navy divers using underwater ROV at a depth of approx 160 feet and 210 feet inside a rat-hole mine," a Navy spokesperson said in a statement.

The body has been brought up to the mouth of the rat-hole mine and will be extracted out of it under the supervision of doctors, the officials said, adding the rescue operations were going on.

The district authorities, however, are tight-lipped on the development.

#MeghalayaMineTragedy #Flash One body detected by Indian Navy Divers using Underwater ROV at a depth of approx 60 feet and 210 feet inside a rat-hole mine @SpokespersonMoD @DefenceMinIndia @nsitharaman @PMOIndia pic.twitter.com/sP1sv6ikRn

— SpokespersonNavy (@indiannavy) January 17, 2019

The accident on December 13, when the miners struck an aquifer leading to the flooding of a 370-foot mine, was the first after the National Green Tribunal (NGT) banned unscientific ‘rat-hole mining’ in the State on April 17, 2014.

The mine, about 130 km from the capital Shillong, is at Ksan near the river Lytein in the Saipung area of East Jaintia Hills, one of eight mining districts of the State.