27 die in Meghalaya: What is rat-hole mining, why it continues despite ban

Following an explosion in an illegal rat-hole mine in Meghalaya’s Thangkso, with the bodies of 27 workers recovered as of Saturday (February 7), officials have ordered a crackdown on illegal mining activities in the region. As The Indian Express reported, the East Jaintia Hills district administration’s action comes in the wake of a blast on Thursday. It is unclear how many workers were inside the tunnels, and the area continues to be searched. As the name suggests, rat-hole mining involves workers entering narrow passages in mines, and the practice poses significant safety risks. Despite the National Green Tribunal (NGT) outlawing it in 2014 and reiterating the ban a year later, the work continues. Rat-hole miners were, in fact, enlisted to rescue workers trapped in the collapsed Silkyara-Barkot tunnel in Uttarakhand in 2023. ## What is rat-hole mining? Rat-hole mining is a method of extracting coal from narrow, horizontal seams, prevalent in Meghalaya, which has some of the largest coal reserves in Northeast India. The term “rat hole” refers to the narrow pits dug into the ground, typically just large enough for one person to descend and extract coal. Once the pits are dug, miners descend using ropes or bamboo ladders to reach the coal seams. The coal is then manually extracted using primitive tools such as pickaxes, shovels, and baskets. OP Singh, professor of environmental studies at North Eastern Hill University (NEHU) in Shillong, earlier told The Indian Express that rat-hole mining is broadly of two types. “In the side-cutting procedure, narrow tunnels are dug on the hill slopes and workers go inside until they find the coal seam. The coal seam in the hills of Meghalaya is very thin, less than 2 m in most cases,” he said. In the other type of rat-hole mining, called box-cutting, a rectangular opening is made, varying from 10 to 100 sqm, and through that a vertical pit is dug, 100 to 400 feet deep. Once the coal seam is found, rat-hole-sized tunnels are dug horizontally through which workers can extract the coal. Parsadhi Lodhi, a rat-hole mine worker from Jharkhand, told The Indian Express in Silkyara that he had been engaged in the work for 10 years in Delhi and Ahmedabad. “There is no reason for us to be scared. This is an 800 mm wide pipe, and we have worked in 600 mm holes,” he said. ## Isn’t rat-hole mining illegal? The NGT banned the practice in 2014 and retained the ban in 2015. It observed, “It is also informed that there are umpteen number of cases where by virtue of rat-hole mining, during the rainy season, water flooded into the mining areas resulting in death of many… individuals including employees/workers.” Notably, the order was in connection with Meghalaya, where it remained a prevalent procedure in coal mining. The state government then appealed the order in the Supreme Court. While there is no central database of rat-hole mining incidents, according to Meghalaya police records, between April 2014 and November 2018, there were at least 477 violations of the NGT order. Rat-hole mining has come under severe criticism for safety risks and environmental hazards. The mines are typically unregulated, lacking safety measures such as proper ventilation, structural support, or safety gear for the workers. Additionally, the mining process can cause land degradation, deforestation, and water pollution. Despite numerous cases of fatalities and injuries, and some attempts by authorities to regulate or ban such practices, the work continues. Before Thangkso, several workers in Assam’s Dima Hasao district were also trapped in a rat-hole mine almost exactly one year ago, with nine workers dead after the mine got flooded. In 2018, too, 15 rat-hole miners died after being trapped for two weeks in a coal mine in Meghalaya. What explains the continued operations? A major factor is the lack of economic opportunities for the local population, which forces them to undertake such jobs. As The Indian Express wrote in an editorial after the Assam incident, “In the northeastern states, where the layers of coal are thin and rat-hole mining offers much higher wages than MGNREGA and other government-run schemes, this illegal activity gets a free run. This is especially so when the politician-bureaucracy nexus turns an unseeing eye.” “The implementation of the NGT order, in letter and spirit, needs an acknowledgement of the problem and the political will to address it,” it said.