India coal mine blast kills at least 18 dead

An explosion at an illegal coal mine in northeastern India has left at least 18 people dead, local authorities said.

Police on Thursday confirmed that 18 bodies had been recovered from the blast site in a remote area of the East Jainta Hills district, News.Az reports, citing Al Jazeera.

According to local official Manish Kumar, eight other individuals were injured in the incident. The exact number of workers present at the mine at the time of the explosion remains unclear, and police warned that additional people may still be trapped underground.

Kumar said rescue operations were halted at sundown on Thursday and are set to resume on Friday with assistance from state and federal teams. He identified the site as an “illegal rat-hole mine,” a term used for narrow, deep shafts where workers operate in extremely hazardous conditions to extract coal and other minerals.

District police chief Vikash Kumar said preliminary assessments suggest the blast may have been caused by dynamite, though investigations are still ongoing.

“It is likely that the workers died either from burn injuries or breathing issues because of the release of noxious fumes,” Kumar said in a statement quoted by The Indian Express. “But because there is no one who has come out in a condition to tell us exactly what happened and how many workers were there in total, we do not have an estimation of how many more may be trapped.”

News.Az 

By Nijat Babayev