Hyderabad, June 18: The death of 17 miners in the flooding of an underground coalmine in Andhra Pradesh has come as a stark reminder of the fragile safety measures as leaders across the political spectrum and trade unions are pointing accusing fingers at the collieries management for failing to prevent the tragedy. Amidst allegations of failure to put in place fool-proof safety measures, the state government has ordered a judicial probe by a sitting high court judge to ferret out facts.
The Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) is coming under sharp attack for its alleged inability to quickly plug the leakage in one of the upper coal seams and failure to follow safety standards while filling the gaps between waterlogged areas and those sections of mines from where coal reserves had been extracted. "It is a clear case of negligence on the part of the management. Though the authorities were warned about leakage from the second seam, no action was taken to prevent the water from gushing into the third seam where miners were engaged in work," the AITUC general secretary P Nageshwar Rao said.
While top officials maintained that the cause of mishap, the worst in the 114 year old history of SCCL, was yet to be ascertained, the workers' unions and leaders of almost all political parties, including ruling TDP, blamed the management for failing to prevent the tragedy. Bureau Report