Over 15 lakh litre more water pumped out of Meghalaya mine, but still no significant drop in water level

Shillong, Meghalaya, India

Over 15 lakh litres of water was pumped out of the 370-foot deep coal mine in Meghalaya on Friday where 15 miners are trapped since December 13.

However, despite the pump out there was no significant drop in the level of the water.

A day before the rescuers had extracted over 28 lakh litres of water.

The Kirloskar Brothers Ltd pump is engaged in dewatering the main shaft where the miners are trapped. They carried out the work for 17.5 hours and managed to pump out 15.75 lakh litres, operations spokesperson R Susngi said.

The Centre told the Supreme Court Friday that it has to "believe in miracles" and see if the 15 miners, who have been trapped for almost a month inside an illegal rat-hole coal mine come out alive.

It said the authorities were making all efforts to save the lives of these persons and the Indian Navy and planes and helicopters of the Indian Air Force have been deployed in the rescue operation.

The authorities have arrested the person running the illegal mine where the incident took.

(With inputs from PTI)