Dhanbad: All 54 miners trapped in a coal mine in Dhanbad are dead, Dhanbad Deputy Commissioner Bela Rajesh said.
Rescuers on Friday identified 46 bodies of the 50 trapped at a coal mine in Jharkhand's Dhanbad district and brought out 39 of them, a senior official said.
"Forty-six bodies have been identified and of them 39 have been brought out and sent for post-mortem," Bela Rajesh said.
The deaths were caused due to inhalation of carbon monoxide following an underground explosion in the mine on Wednesday night when over 50 miners were inside, he said.
"Rescue teams managed to locate 43 bodies from the Bhat-Dih mines on Thursday night of which many have been pulled out," Rajesh said.
As many as 58 miners were working in the B shift of the Bhat-Dih mine of Nagda section of the colliery on Wednesday, when a loud explosion took place.
Four of the workers in the upper side of the colliery sustained injuries and were admitted to a local hospital.
The explosion took place at about 2000 hrs (IST) on Wednesday and was reportedly caused by the pressure due to the accumulation of methane and carbon monoxide.
The intensity was so high that a one-tonne trolley in inclination number 17 was thrown out.
Jharkhand Chief Minister Arjun Munda, who was heckled by relatives of the trapped men and workers, said at the accident site: "Had the Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL) started the rescue operation on time, the trapped miners could have been saved."
"This is an unprecedented situation and the chances of their survival are zero," said Partha Bhattacharya, chairman of Bharat Coking Coal Limited.
"The miners were working at a depth of 460 metres when the explosion and the gas leak reduced the oxygen level to almost zero," Bhattacharya said.
A union member alleged that BCCL had not updated the map of the mine, making rescue even more difficult.
Coal India Limited (CIL) chairman Shashi Kumar and BCCL chief Managing Director (CMD) Partho Ghosh, who visited the spot early on Thursday, acknowledged that rescue was difficult.
Munda added substance to their grievances when he said: "We had suggested to coal ministry authorities that a Global Positioning System (GPS) be provided to the miners so their position could be located if any tragedy takes place. But our suggestion was not taken in a positive way."
Munda admitted that the rescue team should have been more aware and that the safety equipment at the site was not up to the mark.
Last month, several miners were trapped during an illegal mining operation in West Bengal, but a search for them was abandoned after water from a river flooded the pit.
The Jharia area is home to coalfields with prime coke coal. Mining in the region began in the 19th century but the mines have been hit by a series of underground fires that have raged since 1916.
(With agency inputs)
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