Subsidence fear gripped the coalmine areas of Durgapur as a school building, one concrete residential house and two temporary structures have started sinking.
Representational Image/ANI
Subsidence fear gripped the coalmine areas of Durgapur as a school building, one concrete residential house and two temporary structures have started sinking. It poses a threat to at least 1,500-odd residents of the locality in Kajora, about 25 km from Durgapur town.
The residents panicked after a large surface area of Anjirbagan locality in Kajora, under Andal PS developed horizontal cracks. Yesterday late afternoon, a portion of a school building cracked and started going down. Further surface cracks devastated the locality this morning. Eastern Coalfields, the functioning Coal India subsidiary erected fencing to prevent entry of the residents to the locality. The ECL runs two mine pits, No. 10 & 11 of Khas Kajora colliery there. The affected Anjirbagan is a bit away from the currently working mines. ECL field officials blamed that dearth of adequate sand filling in the pre nationalisation era (prior to 1973) invited the menace of subsidence in the area.
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The Khas Kajora mine pits currently operate on the ‘R-8’ underground coal seam but, in the pre-nationalisation era, the private mine operators had worked desperately on ‘R-9’ seam at much shallow level. Prashant Kumar, general manager, Kajora Area of ECL said: “We’ve already rescued the residents, the trapped vehicles, furniture and valuables and have deployed security personnel.” The authorities are set to initiate dozing operations there.
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