The national media reported the mining tragedy at Ksan, in
Lumthari, East Jaintia Hills, Meghalaya only after it was called out for neglecting
a mine disaster where the death toll could go up much beyond the 15 names we
know. This disaster would have not even been reported had there not been a
survivor, Sayeb Ali of Panbari, Assam. Now that the New Year is upon us, most media
channels barring the regional ones have put all their resources into politics
and political personalities. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s interview was
analysed to death by all channels, particularly by those wanting to show him in
a good light. That’s what India has become today. Humans don’t matter; their
tragedies don’t matter. Television anchors with their heavily made-up faces
look fake when they speak about farmers’ distress because they just don’t know what
that means.
And perhaps the Indian television audience too looks for news
that spins according to its taste. So you can’t really blame the media which
after all survives on television rating points (TRPs). And now that the Joint
Parliamentary Committee (JPC) finds no wrong with the Citizenship Bill, 2016, we
can expect to see more debates on
this issue in all channels. Why would the rat-hole
mining tragedy even figure in the radar of a media that jumps from issue to
issue like a public relations personnel?
As far as mining tragedies in Meghalaya are concerned, this is
not the first major one. People have been buried inside the rat-hole mines and will
continue to die inside these deadly human graves if this inhuman form of coal
mining is not banned. Way back in 1992
nearly about 30 mine labourers in South Garo Hills were caught in a similar
flood and about half of them somehow escaped death. The rest were never found;
not even their bodies were retrieved. Again in 2012 a similar thing happened;
15 miners were buried in a mine
in Garo Hills. Their bodies have never been recovered. Most mine workers
are migrant labourers from Bangladesh
and Nepal. Of late a good number
from the BTAD area have also
entered the labour force. People are forced by stark poverty to undertake this
risky form of work just to keep body and soul together.
January 2, 2019, 21 days after the mining tragedy, the rescue
operations are proving futile. With each passing day, hopes of the trapped
miners being rescued alive fades. On Day 20, the pumps brought by the Odisha Fire
Service that can pump out 1600 litres per minute were deployed, the water
in the mine remained at
the same level. Similar pumps
used to pump out water from the abandoned mines saw the water level recede only
by six inches. The heavy-duty Kirloskar pumps are yet to arrive at the site.
What one comes back with after visiting the mining site is that there is
constant leakage
of water into the ill-fated mine. Clearly the rescue team is
out of depth and does not have enough information on the topography of the area
and in zeroing in on the source of the leak
into the mine. Mining expert Jaswant
Singh Gill who is said to have rescued 65 miners from a mine in Raniganj, West
Bengal in 1989, observed that the leak has to be plugged and then only can the
navy divers go into the mine since they can only go
in to a depth of 40 feet. The water at the mine is 176 feet
deep even now.
The East Khasi Hills district administration has been found
wanting from day one. Much time was lost before
the rescue operation was launched.
This is due to the absence of a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for rat-hole
mining disasters. But this is also because mines are privately owned and the
State does not regulate them in any way. It’s a free for all mining operation
with no checks and balances and, certainly, no accountability. Hence, when an
accident happens as it has in the past, the district administration, indeed the whole government machinery itself,
is caught in a bind and does not know what to do first and how.
What this mining tragedy tells us is that rescuing people from
a cave is not the same as rescuing miners from a hole dug by man and without the
ledges and shelves that caves
afford inside where a person
can somehow manoeuvre and cling on to some ledges and hang on to for some
days. This coal mine in Jaintia Hills would not have oxygen even though
people speak of some
air pockets through which
breathing might be possible. Moreover,
the water inside is very cold, perhaps even freezing as was experienced by
us while crossing the knee-deep river Lytein at three places to reach the mine
site. One wonders whether those miners could survive the
cold inside, considering this is winter. I see that the NDRF
are trying their
best but it’s
too little too late. And yet I admire their tenacity of hanging
on there for over two weeks.
If one is to hold anyone accountable for this disaster and the
rescue mission that did not find any
traction even after a week of the disaster, then one would blame the district
administration. There was delay in requisitioning the pumps and the NDRF was
right in saying that it is the onus of the district administration to be keeping in stock
the high horse power pumps since a mining disaster such
as the one that happened on December
13, would require such pumps. The State Government too was caught napping. The Chief Minister is
yet to visit the site. Two of his ministers including the Minister for Disaster
Management visited the site two weeks after the accident. And the Minister for
Disaster Management represents that very area. Perhaps the Government is hugely embarrassed at being
caught lying. Just two weeks before the
mining disaster, the Chief Minister and other ministers have been denying that
there is illegal coal mining still happening after the NGT ban of April 2014.
They did this essentially to convince the Supreme Court that all the coal lying
near the collieries were already mined before the NGT ban. On hearing this plea,
the Supreme Court last month allowed transportation of the mined coal until
January 31, 2019.
The mine disaster just
busted the lie of the entire government machinery that was in
denial that there was illegal coal mining happening since the NGT ban.
Then of course the accident did not get media attention the way
the Thailand incident of June, 2018 did when a school football team strayed into
a cave even when there were clear instructions not to enter it. The cave was
flooded and the boys could not find their way out. At that time the whole
world volunteered to rescue the trapped students. India sent its Kirloskar pumps to drain out the water
from the cave. British Navy divers finally rescued the 13 boys. But
Meghalaya is in the
back of beyond and when the Government
itself is slow
in seeking help because it now
has to defend its own back as things are bound to go awry. And what comes out
very clearly from this incident is that the lives of the poor and the voiceless
don’t really matter. Not to the mine owner, not to the State Government and
certainly not the Central Government. Not even large sections of the media. We
truly live in our own bubbles in the 21st century.
Coal mining in Meghalaya enjoys political patronage because all
elections are funded
by coal barons. Several elected MLAs are
today coal mine owners. In fact it would be interesting to find out
which politician, which bureaucrat and which police official does not own a
coal mine. The MP of Shillong constituency, Vincent Pala and his family own
mines. Recently, Pala raised a Zero Hour motion
on the mine tragedy but instead of calling for strict action against illegal mining, he pleaded
that rat-hole mining should be
legalized! Such blatant self-centredness is yet to be seen.
Article Cr <P Mukhim>
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