One more body found under coal heap debris in Sundargarh

The death toll in the Sundargarh coal mine tragedy rose to 10 with the recovery of one more body on Sunday morning. Later in the day, hundreds of agiatated villagers gheraoed the Balinga police outpost with four bodies.

As family members of missing persons and local villagers waited anxiously near the mishap spot at Kulda-Basundhara open cast coal mines of Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL), around 150 km from here, agitated locals marched to the Balinga police outpost and demanded compensation of Rs 25 lakh to the family of each deceased and a permanent job to the victim's family.

The incident took place when some people from nearby villages were collecting coal from the overburdened dump yard located near the mining area, an MCL spokesman said.

Some of them were buried when a portion of the coal dump suddenly collapsed, probably due to heavy rains that lashed the area yesterday, he said, adding search and rescue operation was immediately launched at the site.

Like the previous day, heavy downpour interrupted rescue operations for about an hour on Sunday. But people converged at the site in large numbers expecting recovery of their kin from the coal overburden, which collapsed on Saturday when around 30 locals were collecting remnant coal.

While the confirmed death toll stood at 10, more bodies are feared to be lying below the debris. MCL sources said 60 per cent of the debris had been removed. Rescue operations, which were stopped during the night after recovery of nine bodies, resumed around 10 am. One body was recovered by evening. "Since it is a large patch about 40 to 50-metre long, the operation is taking time," said general manager, Basundhara coal mines, A K Singh.

Four excavators were pressed into service. We have called for one more to expedite operations," he added.

Those dead were identified as Mukteswar Kumar (27), Gurubari Majhi (55), Bhagabati Majhi (50), Sumanta Kharsel (35), Dulari Bhoi (55), Rajesh Dhandi (15), Raimal Seth (50) (all natives of Balinga village), Sukesh Satpathy (29) of Kurla village under Bhasma police station and Deepak Nayak (50) of Gomadera under Belpahar police station of Jharsuguda district. "We have handed over the bodies to the family members after proper identification and post mortem," said SP (Sundargarh) Sanjeev Arora.

Locals accused MCL of ignoring development work under periphery development scheme and demanded improvement of roads and other infrastructure. "The locals are in an agitated mood and might lodge an FIR against senior MCL officials alleging that the company was responsible for the mishap," said a police officer.

Political leaders made a beeline to the mishap spot and met the victims' families. Sundargarh MP Hemananda Biswal and Sundargarh Sadar MLA Jogesh Singh, both from Congress, had visited the spot on Saturday. Commerce and transport minister Subrat Tarai, who represents Raghunathpalli in Sundaragrh, went to the area on Sunday and discussed details of the rescue operation with officials.

Monday 12 August 2013

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