Law Kumar Mishra
Patna, September 18
National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) team on Monday noon retrieved the bodies of three women who were sucked into a 15 feet deep crater in the Jharia coal mines area on Sunday evening.
According to the Deputy Commissioner of Dhanbad, Varun Ranjan, three women who were walking in the underground fire zone of Gondudih colliery of Bharat Coking Coal Limited(BCCL). Land suddenly caved in and three women-Thandi Devi, Manva Devi and Pala Devi were sucked into the 15 feet deep crater which was seven feet wide.
CISF and local police reached the mines area on Sunday evening, but could not retrieve the bodies. Today, NDRF was called and its jawans succeeded in retrieving the three bodies, which were found badly burnt. Rescue operation was completed on Monday noon.
Agitated over the death of three women, local villagers from Chhotki Borwa Basti attacked the managers of the colliery and assaulted two officers of BCCL–Dilip Kumar and Rajesh Kumar. They are admitted in the Central Hospital at Dhanbad.
B K Jha, Colliery Manager of BCCL said the Gondudih colliery was an outsource project of the coal company.
Subsidence is common in the Jharia coal fields where underground fire is on for the last 50 years.Government of India had started Rs 22,000 crores Jharia rehabilitation and development Plan in 2011` and about one lakh people from the underground fire areas were resettled in the safer places.
Subsidence has adversely affected the movement of railways in the area and Katras and Jharia stations linked to Dhanbad have been closed due to the underground fire. A premier college and post office at Jharia too had to be shifted due to rising incidents of subsidence.
