Power crisis: 265 miners trapped in WB, J'khand rescued

A massive power cut in the country led to 265 miners getting trapped in coal mines in West Bengal and Jharkhand and were rescued after they spent agonising time for several hours.

When the three transmission grids serving the northern, eastern and northeastern regions collapsed at 1 pm, 200 miners were trapped in the Eastern Coalfields' mines in Sodepur and Satgram in Burdwan district of West Bengal. They were stuck as lifts stopped functioning, Eastern Coalfields General Manager, Technical, Niladri Roy told PTI.

In Jharkhand, 65 miners were stuck in Bharat Coking Coal Limited mines in Dhanbad district, its CMD Tapas Kumar Lahiry said.

After several hours of rescue operations all the miners were evacuated in the evening. "All the 200 miners stuck inside Sodepur and Satgram mines in Burdwan (West Bengal) have come out. We arranged emergency power to rescue our trapped miners," he said.  All the 65 trapped in mines in Dhanbad district of Jharkhand have been  "successfully evacuated".

Miners had gone into the mines in the first shift and were struck there after the grid collapsed.

There were about 3,500 miners in the first shift and majority of them came out immediately after the power cut, BCCL director, technical, Ashok Sarkar said.