After the devastating accident in a Meghalaya coal mine that killed many miners . We now have another such incident taking place in Odisha. Four workers are feared dead and nine have been injured in a landslide at an open cast mine of Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL) in Odisha’s Talcher.
In a statement issued by MCL, “Labourers working in the night shift at Bharatpur open cast mine in Talcher Coalfields of MCL came under a dump slide due to a strata failure. The accident occurred between 11 p.m.-11.30 p.m. on Tuesday when a portion of earth broke loose trapping 13 workers and machinery at work. The fellow-labourers and rescue teams immediately swung into action and rescued nine workers, who were shifted to the company’s Central Hospital at Talcher for treatment of minor injuries. The rescue operation is underway to recover four missing workers.”
Dikken Mehra, a spokesman for Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd, a Coal India subsidiary told Reuters, “The open cast mine in Odisha, with a production capacity of 20,000 tonnes a day, had been shut after the late Tuesday accident. It will take at least a week to resume operations.”
Local officials said that the landslide took place due to a controlled explosion at the site.
Looking at the rising deaths in the killing mines, the life of a miner in India is always at a risk here. AS per the Government date, we have one worker dying every seven days on an average. Most of the mines in India are illegal and often in remote hilly regions. They have a poor safety record and there is very little data as many of the accidents go unreported.
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