Rescue workers yet to reach trapped miners

After 18 days the chances of their survival are thin

QUETTA:

Rescue workers have failed to reach the two trapped miners in Balochistan’s Dukki coal mine despite the passage of 18 days.

There is little hope that both of them could be rescued alive as the mine was suddenly flooded with rainwater and no one could stay alive without food for three weeks. “These two unfortunate miners were trapped almost 900 feet below the ground level,” the Assistant Commissioner Dukki, Muhammad Hanif Kibzai told The Express Tribune, adding that so far the rescue workers were able to go 600 feet deep in three weeks.

On May 4, two miners were trapped in a mine when rainwater suddenly filled it, leading to its sudden collapse.

Some miners were lucky enough to escape in time and save their lives but two of them were left behind as they were working deep underground.

Lack of proper equipment and heavy machinery and properly trained rescue workers is the main reason why the operation took so long and failed in the end despite all efforts.

“This is inhuman, nobody is concerned about the lives of coal miners in this province. Everyone is making excuses,” Rehmatullah, one of the family members of the trapped miners said.

This is a mental torture our entire families are passing through for the past 18 days, he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 19^th, 2023.