The divers from the Indian Navy and the National Disaster Response Force on Wednesday could not go down the 370 foot-deep mine, in which 15 miners are trapped for nearly three weeks, even as draining out of a nearby abandoned mine they believe may be connected to it continued, officials said.
A high-powered submersible pump from Coal India Ltd will be put into operation on Thursday in the abandoned mine, while more pumps from Odissa Fire and Disaster service are to be pressed into services in more abandoned mines, they said.
The divers from the Indian navy and the NDRF did not go down the main shaft to rescue the trapped miners because 'de-watering' was going on in the nearby mines and there was no significant decrease in water level there, operation spokesperson R Susngi told PTI, giving details of the operation on the 21st day of the disaster.
At about 5.30 pm, the water level at the nearby abandoned mine went down by 16 inches, he said. On Tuesday, water level in this mine had lowered down by six inches.
The spokesperson said the services of the Navy and NDRF divers will be used once the water level at the main shaft decreases to about 100 feet from its current level of over 160 feet.
A high powered submersible pump from Coal India Ltd, which arrived in Shillong on Tuesday night, is expected to be fully operational and begin pumping on Thursday, Susngi said.
As on Wednesday, one of the 10 pumps brought by a team from Odisha was in use in a nearby abandoned mine and on Thursday the pump from Coal India Ltd will replace it.
Susngi also said the Odisha team is expected to operate more pumps on Thursday in the nearby abandoned mine shafts in East Jaintia Hills district.
District Authorities said there are at least 90 such abandoned mine shafts in the area and at present they are all full of water.
The rescue officials believe that the nearby mines may be connected with the main shaft due to which water level is not going down there.
Five more pumps with similar power and functions from Coal India Ltd are on the way by road from their various centres across the country.
With search and the rescue operation not making much headway, no contact has been established with the trapped miners even after 21 days of the disaster. It is still not clear whether they have access to food or water.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court agreed to hear on Thursday a plea seeking urgent steps to rescue the 15 miners.
The matter was mentioned on Wednesday for urgent listing before a bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice S K Kaul which agreed to hear the matter on Thursday.
The public interest litigation filed by advocate Aditya N Prasad also sought a direction to the Centre and other authorities concerned to prepare a standard operating procedure (SOP) for rescue operations in 'mines and other similar conditions'.
The plea, filed through advocate Astha Sharma, sought directions to the Centre and the state to utilise the services of the technical wing of the Indian Armed Forces -- the Indian Army, Indian Navy and Indian Air Force -- in the operation immediately to rescue the 15 miners.
The rat-hole mine, atop a hillock fully covered with trees in East Jaintia Hills district, was flooded when water from the nearby Lytein river gushed into it, trapping the miners.
Rat-hole mining involves digging of narrow tunnels, usually three-four feet high, for workers to enter and extract coal. The horizontal tunnels are often termed "rat holes" as each just about fits one person.
The petitioner sought directions to the Centre and the state government to request for high capacity self priming pumps available in the country including that of Kirloskar Brothers Limited (KBL) which were offered to the Royal Thai government in June-July 2018.
Pune-based KBL had given technical support in the operations to rescue a football team trapped inside a cave system in Thailand.
KBL had then offered to provide four specialised high capacity Autoprime de-watering pumps, which were kept ready at Kirloskarvadi plant in Maharashtra to be airlifted to Thailand.
The plea has also sought directions to the concerned authorities for air lifting the pumps to the rescue site.
It also sought directions to the Coal India Limited for providing necessary technical know how, equipment and guidance immediately at the rescue site.
The NDRF had contradicted the media reports which quoted it as saying that the trapped minors were suspected to be dead on the basis of a foul odour that the force's divers had encountered when they went inside the mine.
It had said the foul smell could be due to the stagnant water in the mine as pumping had been halted for more than 48 hours.
A survivor of the accident had said on saturday that there was no way the trapped miners would come out alive.
Family members of at least seven trapped miners had already given up hope to rescue them alive and requested the government to retrieve the bodies for last rites.
