The Hindu : SCCL to step up safety in mines

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jun 29, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh

SCCL to step up safety in mines

By Our Staff Reporter

GODAVARIKHANI JUNE 28. Following the drowning of 17 coal miners in the 7 LEP (life extension project) in Godavarikhani on June 16 due to sudden gushing of waters in the mine, the Singareni Collieries Company Limited management has decided to provide adequate safety measures in the mine for coal workers.

The SCCL miners rescue team, which is ill-equipped to tackle the water inundation mishaps in the mine, is contemplating to procure state-of-the-art modern equipment to rescue the miners trapped in the mines. When 17 miners were trapped in the 7 LEP mine in Godavarikhani, rescue teams faced several hardships to retrieve their bodies and took almost 50 hours for retrieving all the bodies. The pumping out of water from the mine could be done only after seven hours of the mishap.

Taking into consideration the pathetic experiences the rescue teams had encountered, the Singareni safety authorities have launched a series of training programmes on how to take appropriate measures and how to mitigate crisis during the inundation of the mines. Besides, the officials are also reviewing the safety measures being undertaken in each mine.

Talking to `The Hindu' here on Saturday, the SCCL Chief General Manager (Safety), B.P.R. Vittal said that they were exploring all avenues to equip the Singareni mines with modern rescue tools during the water inundation. He said that they were planning to procure modern submersible pumps sets having a capacity of pumping out 1,000 gallons per minute, 2,000 GPM and 500 GPM respectively.

These submersible pumps could be installed within one hour and flush out water at a rapid speed and save the lives of miners. Three submersible pump sets costing Rs. 80 lakhs would be deployed at Ramagundam, Kothagudem and Bellampalli regions. Another technique of flushing out water from the mine was called `burn side boring operations' or `barrow technique', he said. Under this type of rescue operations, the burn-side boring machine costing Rs. 50 lakhs would dig a horizontal hole into the mine to flush out water and rescue miners, he stated.

Besides, the SCCL was also considering to procure higher diameter drilling machine costing Rs. 15 crores and presently used only in US and Australia. In this type of rescue operation, the machine makes a hole of 30-inche diameter from the top position of the mine and drills up to a depth of 300 metres to reach the spot of the mishap and rescues the miners. The US, by using this machine, had rescued nine miners trapped inside the mine due to water inundation. In Mahavirkhani in Eastern Collieries Company Limited (ECCL) also, this technique had helped in rescuing 11 miners, he added.

Mr. Vittal also said that they were conducting inspection of all the 56 underground mines and reviewing the safety measures. He said that they were also identifying the problems of rescue teams and reviewing the safety measures in the mine and also giving appropriate instructions.

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