3 feared dead after coal mine floods in India’s Assam state

Nine men have been trapped in the mine since Monday in Assam’s hilly Dima Hasao district

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Army teams deployed divers, helicopters and engineers to help rescue the nine men, who have been trapped since Monday morning. Photo: X/PRODefKohima

Published: 11:45pm, 6 Jan 2025Updated: 3:14pm, 7 Jan 2025

Three miners are feared dead inside a flooded coal mine in a remote district of India’s northeastern Assam state, authorities said on Tuesday, as rescue teams worked through the night to try to reach the nine men trapped inside.

Three bodies have been spotted by rescue teams but have not yet been recovered, the local government said in a statement.

The miners have been trapped since Monday morning in the Umrangso area in Dimapur Hasao district, some 125 miles (200km) south of the state capital, Guwahati.

An aerial view of the mine site in the Indian state of Assam’s hilly Dima Hasao district. Photo: X/PRODefKohima

Army teams deployed divers, helicopters and engineers to help rescue the nine men, the army said in a statement.

“The mine got flooded yesterday – the source was internal. They [the miners] probably hit some water channel and water came out and flooded it,” said Mayank Kumar, district police chief in Dima Hasao.

Kumar said rescue teams from the army, national and state disaster relief forces were working to reach the trapped miners.

Kaushik Rai, a local government minister who is monitoring the rescue at the site, said the miners were “feared trapped 300 feet below the ground after water gushed in from a nearby unused mine. We are mobilising resources to rescue them.”