Five killed in waste collapsing incident in Jharkhand

Five individuals were declared dead after a pile of waste collapsed on them while they were lifting coal from an abandoned open coal mine which is owned by a state-run Coal India Ltd in the east of Jharkhand.

Police on the site of the incident was reported saying that the incident occurred in Gopinathpur in the district of Dhanbad, which is about 400km from Jharkhand capital of Ranchi.

Police also commented on the deceased, pointing out that the ones who died weren’t professional miners. “In that patch, mining work was not going on. Those who died were local coal pickers,” Dhanbad Senior Superintendent of Police Sanjeev Kumar told Reuters.

Coal mining apart from being a major pollutant is also termed as a dangerous profession, which indirectly exposes the miner to chronic obstructive pulmonary, asthma, lung cancer, and respiratory infections. It is recorded to claim one live every 12 days on average in 2020 according to the government data.

Updated by Preet Joshi