Rescue operation for trapped miners in Meghalaya called off due to rain
India TV NewsThirty-nine days after five miners were trapped in a flooded coal mine in Meghalayas East Jaintia Hills district, the state government has called off the rescue operation due to incessant rainfall, an official said on Thursday. After three bodies could be retrieved from inside the mine since mid-June, the district administration was forced to take the decision given the increasing water level at the illegal rat-hole mine due to continuous rainfall in the area for the past many days, the official said. "Due to heavy rains, the water level rose inside the 152-metre-deep pit hampering diving operations in the mineshaft for the retrieval of bodies," deputy commissioner E Kharmalki told PTI. The rat-hole mine at Umpleng, about 20 km from Khliehriat, the headquarters of East Jaintia Hills district, was flooded trapping five migrant workers four from Assam and one from Tripura- after a dynamite explosion on May 30.