Chennai, January 13 (PTI): A team of a city-based company that specialises in submersible robotic inspections on Sunday joined the operation to rescue 15 miners trapped for a month now inside a flooded rat-hole coal mine in Meghalaya.
According to the website of the company, Planys Technologies, it is an IIT Madras incubated company that provides submersible robotic inspections and survey solutions using Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROV).
One ROV and a six-member team of the firm have joined the operation, a company official said.
"The team joined Sunday. They are working with the Navy," the official, who did not want to be named, told PTI.
The miners have been trapped inside a 370-foot-deep illegal coal mine in Meghalaya's East Jaintia Hills district since December 13, 2018 after water from a nearby river gushed in, puncturing the mine wall.
Even as a multi-agency effort to rescue them is underway, the Supreme Court is hearing a PIL in the matter for urgent action.
The Centre on Friday told the apex court it has to "believe in miracles" and see if the miners come out alive.
The Indian Navy and planes and helicopters of the Indian Air Force have been deployed in the rescue operations.
NGT asks state police to crackdown on illegal mining
A month after 15 miners were trapped in a coal mine, search operations for which are still underway; a three-member committee of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has asked the Meghalaya Police to investigate into nearly 1,200 cases of illegal quarrying across the state.
The green tribunal had imposed a blanket ban on coal mining and transportation in Meghalaya in 2014, citing unscientific methods and absence of safety measures.
The three-member NGT committee, constituted in August 2018, is currently studying the environmental aspects of rat-hole mining in the state. An official said the police have been told that their probe should reach a logical conclusion after taking into account all 1,200 cases of illegal rat-hole mining in East Garo Hills, South-West Khasi Hills and West and East Jaintia Hills districts.Rat-hole mining involves digging of narrow tunnels, usually 3-4 feet high, for workers to enter and extract coal. The horizontal tunnels are often termed “rat-holes”, as each just about fits one person.
