Abbottabad mine collapse: Thirty-six hours, zero bodies

The mine, built illegally, was being excavated by untrained workers.

ABBOTABAD:

Bereaved villagers and overworked rescuers toiled for hours on Thursday to dig out bodies of eleven miners who died in Wednesday’s phosphate mine collapse.

But, according to police and witnesses, no bodies could be recovered even after 36 hours of the incident.

The accident occurred in Batkinala, a remote village in Abbottabad district, when 11 mine workers, including two owners, were buried alive as a heavy mass of the phosphate mine fell on them. They were reportedly having lunch at the mouth of the mine, sources said.

According to locals, the mine was being quarried by workers without any proper training. The mine, they said, was developed by the workers on their own and without a permit from the provincial mineral department.

Attempts to launch a rescue operation were made as soon as villagers contacted police and district administration officials, but the mine is located at a steep point which is inaccessible by land.

“The chill and rainy weather also hampered the operation,” DCO Abbottabad Imtiaz Hussain Shah said. “Civil defence workers and officials of Rescue 1122 were called in but since they are carrying out the operation without any machinery, a breakthrough in recovering the bodies can only be expected by midnight.”

Shah said that machinery has been moved to the site but it cannot be transported to where the accident occurred, because the area is too steep. However, a police source said that the operation could take up to two days.

Meanwhile, police have registered a criminal case against mine owners Muhammad Riaz and Younas Shah. The case, launched under Section 322 of the Pakistan Penal Code, has been lodged on a complaint by Muhammad Riaz, an assistant director at the Hazara division’s mines department.

In his report to the director-general of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Mines Department, Riaz said that excavation was being done unscientifically which triggered a landslide. He blamed the owners for illegal quarrying of phosphate and held them responsible for the deaths of 11 people.

One of the accused, Younas Shah, is among the trapped miners who are feared dead.

Meanwhile, in a belated response to the tragedy, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain has put the death toll at 14 and confirmed that the mines were illegal.

“The mines were illegal but at this point, we should be searching for survivors. So far, no bodies have been found,” Hussain told The Express Tribune.

Condoling with the affected families, he said that officials from Mardan and Rawalpindi had reached the area and heavy machinery was also arranged with help from Pakistan Army.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 27^th, 2012.