There was a illegal mine near Dhanbad at the Bhowra Colliery Area that collapsed on Friday morning. At least 3 people died in the coal mine collapse and many are still trapped under the debris. This mine had been declared closed earlier but work was still being done illegally.

This coal mine collapse was a great destruction

As soon as the news of this collapse came up, the local residents gathered at the spot. They tried to rescue as many people as they could. They started pulling out people from the debris. 5 people were taken to the hospital for their treatment. Three people died on the spot of the incident – a child, a woman and a 25 year old man.

The authorities were slow to react…

There were many people there at the time of the incident. Amongst those witnesses, Witness Vinod Kumar Sudhakar said, “The authorities were slow to react despite us informing them about the collapse. We pulled out a few people and sent them to hospitals. We will protest until a First Information Report (FIR) is registered. Illegal mining is widespread here and many complaints have been made, but no action has been taken.”

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The witness wished to bring light towards the fact that illegal mining has become really prevalent. Due to the same, there is both loss of life and loss of nature. This is done just to earn monetary profits, which has a huge opportunity cost. This needs to be looked into very seriously, since it brings destruction and also leads to loss of lives of poor people.

An inspector from the Jorapokhar police station, who was present at the spot, said they had received information that several people were stuck under the debris after a portion of a coal mine had caved in. “More information will be known only after investigation,” he said.