The accident occurred on Monday, when nine men were trapped inside the mine in the hilly Dima Hasao district after water from a nearby unused mine suddenly gushed in, according to reports.
The navy has deployed deep-sea divers and teams to rescue the trapped miners and pump out water from the mine, while the army has sent helicopters, engineers and divers to assist in the rescue, ANI news agency reported.
Officials say high water levels in the mine have posed significant challenges to the rescue and recovery operation.
HPS Kandhari, a senior official in the National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF), said it was difficult to estimate the duration of the operation.
“It is very difficult to get inside the water, there’s hardly anything visible and we don’t know what is inside,” he said.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that the flooded mine appears to be illegal.
The police is investigating the case and a person has been arrested, he said.
India banned so-called rat-hole mining in 2014, but despite this, small illegal mines continue to operate in Assam and other northern and north-eastern states. Accidents are not uncommon here.
Six workers were killed in January 2024 after a fire broke out in a rat-hole coal mine in Nagaland state.
In 2018, at least 15 men were trapped in an illegal mine in Meghalaya after water from a nearby river flooded it.
Five miners managed to escape, but rescue efforts for the others continued until March of the following year. Only two bodies were recovered.
Additional reporting by Dilip Kumar Sharma in Guwahati
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