As the rescue operations to save 15 trapped miners got hampered with the lack of high power pumps, Congress Chief Rahul Gandhi took a jibe at the Prime Minister Narendra Modi for ‘meanwhile’ strutting about the ‘Bogibeel Bridge posing for cameras’.
Gandhi further accused the Modi government of refusing to organise “high-pressure pumps for the rescue” and asked the PM to save the coal miners trapped in a Meghalaya mine.
15 miners have been struggling for air in a flooded coal mine for two weeks.
Meanwhile, PM struts about on Bogibeel Bridge posing for cameras.
His government refuses to organise high pressure pumps for the rescue.
PM please save the miners. https://t.co/STZS62vTp4
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) December 26, 2018
The scathing tweet comes after the commandant of the leading battalion, SK Shastri said that the National Disaster Response Force’s rescue operation got marred owing to the lack of effective equipment.
Shastri further added that the experienced personnel is of the view that there is a requirement of a minimum of 10 pumps having 100 horsepower each in order to pump the water out.
The rat-hole mining of which the accident is the result of, got banned in Meghalaya in 2014 by the National Green Tribunal but coal miners continue the practice.
As many as 15 miners are trapped since December 13 at the rat-hole mining in the state. Currently, only two 25 horsepower pumps are in operation which are draining out the flooded mine located in the East Jaintia Hills.
While talking to media, Shastri said, “We have not found anyone, dead or alive, so we are waiting for support from the state government to carry on the rescue operation”.
