"It's nearly a month since 15 workers were trapped by the flooding of a rathole coal mine in Meghalaya on 13 December. To find any of them alive now would be miraculous," wrote S Chakravarti. What is rathole mining? It is system of mining coal wherein narrow tunnels, usually 3-4 feet wide, are dug into the side of the mountain to reach the coal seam. In Meghalaya the coal seam is not more than 2 meters wide which makes open-cast mining or digging of larger tunnels, with support for the roof, unprofitable. The locals have developed this system of mining coal to increase their income. Children are more suitable to access such narrow tunnels and regularly die if the mines flood. The practice was banned in 2014 by the National Green Tribunal but the state government appealed to the Supreme Court against the ban because it "sustains several of Maghalaya's millionaires -- and the state's economy and politics". In June 2018, 12 boys and their football coach went missing inside a cave in Thailand when heavy rains flooded the opening of the cave. Thailand mounted an enormous rescue operation with huge pumps pumping water round the clock, while experienced divers went searching inside. The boys were found 4 km inside the cave and after 2 weeks of effort all of them were rescued unharmed. One Thai Navy diver died when his oxygen ran out. Here, "Meghalaya's government came to a standstill for 11 days after 22 December over Christmas and New Year Holidays". On 24 December pumps were shut down. "As everyone in the government celebrated Christmas, we stared at the shafts and at each other waiting for better pumps to arrive," said an official of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF). "Additional Chief Secretary PW Ingty, the official in charge of the mission, went on leave." In 2012, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) visited the area and submitted a report on how to improve safety, but in the present disaster an appeal has been filed in the Supreme Court to order a rescue operation. "The regulation must be such that the economic condition should not be affected," said Chief Minister Conrad Sangma, an alumnus of Wharton and London's Imperial College. One manual scavenger dies every 15 days. If 15 have died in flooding of a mine in Meghalaya, nearly 500 people died in floods in Kerala in August last year. Floods were caused by deforestation of the Western Ghats, ignoring a report on the dangers in 2011, and because water in reservoirs were not released until dams were about to overflow. Human life is cheap in India. Only the VIPs matter, as Prof R Thakur discovered. The state collects taxes on illegal activities and then distributes handouts to the poor. The grateful poor vote for them.
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