Rescue workers were trying to reach 15 coal miners trapped underground for 13 days on Wednesday as families prayed for their safe return, but chances of survival looked slim after floodwaters rushed through the illegal "rat-hole" pit.
The 15 went to work at the mine in Meghalaya on December 13 and have been underground ever since.
“Only God's grace and some miracle can help them to be alive,” Kyrmen Shylla, Meghalaya’s disaster management minister, told Reuters by telephone from capital Shillong.
The rescue operations