Khalari/Ranchi | Aug 06, 2015: More than 115 miners were trapped inside Central Coalfields Limited (CCL)'s underground coal mine in Khalari coalfields for six hours on Wednesday before all of them managed to escape.

The miners were trapped when the roof of the Churi underground mines, around 60km from the state capital, caved in about 30 metres from the main entrance. The incident took place around 11am when the first shift was underway. The miners finally managed to come out from the dispatch exit — from where coal is shipped out to the washery —100 metres from the main entrance.

"The roof was in good shape till Tuesday. However, one miner saw some leakage on it while entering the mine this morning. It caved in moments later," S S Prasad, mining manager of Churi coalfields, told TOI a few metres away from the site. "The miners, who were at least 1.5km inside the mine, were immediately relayed the information through wireless service. They were asked not to panic and were guided out through the emergency exit," said Prasad.

Ramadhar Singh, a miner who was trapped inside, narrated his ordeal. "We were deep inside the mine and did not hear anything. There was a sense of panic among us," he said. "Had the roof caved in close to where we were working, there could have been serious injuries and casualties," Singh said. The entrance to the mine was closed immediately. However, mining operations were scheduled to resume few hours later, Prasad informed.

The Khalari coalfields is one of CCL's biggest minefields in the state and houses Dakra open cast mines. The Churi mine is the only underground mine in Khalari and has been operational since 1982. The Churi mine, a CCL ground staff said, has a seven km radius and runs below the Damodar river, which flows three kilometres away from the site. Incidentally, ground officials claimed this was the first accident in Churi in its three-decade history.

Officials at the CCL headquarters in Ranchi appeared short of information when the news broke out in the morning. A senior official observed the incident as minor. "One cannot call it an accident. There has been no injury or casualty. We are awaiting an incident report from the on-ground officials," he said. However, Prasad said the incident could have been triggered by the weakening of support pillars, pointing towards a possible lack of maintenance.

(Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/)