Click to play videoNew Delhi: When workers entered the Bhatdih mine in Dhanbad district at around 1800 hours IST on Wednesday, they never knew they were entering a death trap.
The miners were working in the Nagda section of the colliery when a loud explosion took place. The Nagda mines, situated around 30 km from Dhanbad, have a single entry and exit point.
The workers entered the mines through a rail track and walked down a 1.5- kilometre long slope 450 m underground. Officials suspect that there was a methane leak and the gas mixed with oxygen.
There mixture caused an explosion and the mine’s walls collapsed. Three miners at the exit point were thrown out with severe burn injuries. Water entered the mine and flooded it.
According to experts miners fill cavities formed after coal has been extracted with sand. This prevents the mine from caving in. Sources have told CNN-IBN that the Nagda mine needed 500 metric tonnes of sand but instead only 400 metric tonnes were used. This possibly led to gaps where methane gas formed and caused the explosion.
Safety laws state that a technical expert must check if it's safe to dig the mine any deeper. Experts believe this law may have been ignored.
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