The search operation for Sorange coalmine accident ended on Tuesday as all bodies were recovered. As many as 13 more corpses were retrieved, pushing the death toll to 43.
The 11 bodies found on Tuesday were burnt and mutilated. Thirty-seven victims belonged to Shangla district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa alone. Their bodies have been sent to their ancestral town for burial. Balochistan’s chief inspector of mines, Iftikhar Ahmed said: “The mine is now being sealed. As many as 43 miners were inside when the blast occurred. There are no survivors,” he said.
According to rescue workers, two people escaped death when they did not go into the mine on Sunday.
The Pakistan Central Mines Labour Federation staged a protest in front of the Quetta Press Club demanding a judicial inquiry into the deadly incident. The protesting labourers held secretary mines and the chief inspector responsible for the tragedy, saying it was their negligence that took so lives. The federation demanded that the government immediately terminate the services of the two.
“The government must set up a judicial inquiry comprising judges of the Balochistan High Court,” said secretary PCMLF Sultan Mohammad Khan.
The labourers alleged that many inquiry committees have been constituted in the past, but a report is yet to be produced.
Leader of the Mines Labour Union Bakht Mohammad told The Express Tribune. “It is a difficult job because the miners have to go five to seven thousand feet deep inside the mines. Nobody knows if they are going on their last journey,” he said.
The mine in Sorange was run by the state-owned Pakistan Mineral Development Corporation (PMDC) and officials said an inquiry committee has been set up to investigate the accident.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 23rd, 2011.
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