DHANBAD | May 24, 2017: Two persons are feared dead when they got buried several feet underground after a potion of the land caved in at Indira Chowk on Jharia-Sindri road on Wednesday morning. Eyewitnesses said a local shopkeeper Bablu Ansari had hardly opened his shop for the day around 8am while his son, Rahim, was cleaning the space outside on the street when a portion of the land adjacent to the main road subsided, taking him in. When Bablu went to save him, he too fell into the crater.

Underground fire has been raging in the Jharia coalfields for several years now, rendering the surface area unsafe. There have been many instances of land subsidence leading to deaths of local residents.

The local residents blocked roads and vandalised several vehicles following the accident and demanded an immediate halt in mining activities in the area.

A team of district administration and police led by senior divisional magistrate, Rakesh Kumar, reached the spot to take control of the situation. Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL), which conducts mining activities in the region, also sent a team of rescuers to the spot. However, the rescuers failed to retrieve the bodies due to high temperature underground from the raging fire.

The administrative officials camped at the spot even as the rescuers tried in vain to fish out the bodies from the crater till late evening.

Rakesh Kumar, while speaking to the media persons, said the administration was making all efforts to rescue the victims. "The area is dangerous and all the residents have been instructed to vacate the place but they are reluctant to leave even though the Director General of Mines Safety (DGMS) had declared the place unsafe. The Jharia Rehabilitation Development Authority (JRDA) is looking after the rehabilitation of displaced people. Thousands of houses have been constructed in Belgoria and Nipania and people are being shifted to the new place," said Kumar.

The BCCL authorities refused to speak to the media.

Chief minister Raghubar Das expressed his grief and announced a compensation of Rs 2 lakh to the kin of each victims from the CM's emergency relief fund.

The leaders of various political parties have camped at the accident spot. Dhanbad deputy mayor, Eklavya Singh said, "The BCCL has ignored the lives and safety of people and has only focussed on coal production. If proper care was taken during mining such incidents would never have happened."

Meanwhile, BJP MP PN Singh blamed Congress for the "pathetic condition" of Jharia. "Tenders were floated to fill the hollow area with sand when Congress was in power, but all seems to have happened on papers. The scam was being probed but few officers of the probe team were killed in the coal belt and the investigation could not be completed," he said.

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