265 miners were trapped in various coal mines of state- owned Eastern Coalfields and Bharat Coking Coal in the two states following massive power failure across the country due to grids collapse by 1300 hrs.
"All the 200 stuck inside Sodepur and Satgram mines in Burdwan (West Bengal) have come out. We arranged emergency power to rescue our trapped miners," Eastern Coalfields General Manager, Technical, Niladri Roy told PTI.
Bharat Coking Coal chief Tapas Kumar Lahiry said six of 65 trapped in mines in Dhanbad district of Jharkhand are being evacuated. "We are hopeful of evacuating all others soon," he added.
Rescue operations are going on and power supply has been restored in some of the
"Our 40 miners are trapped inside Bargarh underground mines. Besides there are some 25 miners still stuck in Moonidih, Putki Balgora and Jairampur mines. Rescue operations are on and we are hopeful of bringing them out soon," Lahiry said.
Lahiry said though the power has been restored in Bargarh mines, there is voltage fluctuation. "Six of them are being evacuated and we are hopeful of evacuating all others soon."
There were about 3,500 miners in the first shift and majority of them came out immediately after the power cut, said BCCL Director, Technical, Ashok Sarkar.
He added that the electric supply has been restored in the area through Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) and adequate food and water are being supplied to the trapped miners.
Meanwhile, Central Coalfields in Jharkhand has prevented its about 5,000 miners from entering into about 25 underground mines in the second shift till normalcy is restored.
"There is no vertical shaft in our mines. All 5,000 miners in the first shift were asked to come out soon after the news of the grid collapse reached us," said CCL Director Technical, T K Nag.
