Four killed as coalmine caves in Balochistan

The deceased miners were buried under three feet of debris

QUETTA: Four coalminers were killed when the mine they were working in caved in on them in Sor Range Coalfield, located some 16 kilometres east of Quetta, on Wednesday.

Bakht Nawab, the president of the Pakistan Mines Workers Federation told media that rescue teams of the Balochistan mines and minerals development department reached the site shortly after receiving the information and pulled the bodies out.

They had been buried under three feet of debris, he said.

The deceased miners were identified as Abdul Qayyum, Muhammad Irfan, Ali Rehman and Kashmir.



According to Nawab, the incident took place in mine 98 where about 100 people were working at the time. The mine is run by the state-owned Pakistan Mineral Development Corporation.

The bodies were sent to their native towns following medico-legal formalities.

Balochistan’s coalmines are notorious for unsafe working conditions and workers die on duty regularly.

In 2015, eight miners died at the Duki Coalfield in Loralai district when a methane buildup caused an explosion, trapping them in. It took three days to retrieve their bodies because rescue officials had to be called in from Quetta, which is around 300 kilometers away.

Similarly, perhaps in the deadliest such incident so far, more than 40 miners died at Sor Range in 2011 in a similar incident of a gas buildup explosion and subsequent land sliding.