Shillong, Jan 23 (IANS): The Indian Navy on Wednesday located the body of a miner which had slipped from the jaw of the underwater remotely operated vehicle (UROV) on Tuesday while they were pulling it out from a rat-hole coal mine in Meghalaya, an official said.
"The body has been located this evening from beneath the main shaft of the coal mine after several hours of searching by the UROV," an official told IANS on condition of anonymity.
"The Navy are now making efforts to gently pull out the fragile body from the flooded mine to the top of the ground. The water is extremely turbid which has made visibility difficult besides the obstruction of pipes, cables and debris inside the shaft," he said.
The official said the naval divers were expected to pull out by Thursday the highly decomposed body with blue jeans and red T-shirt inside the mine which they detected a week earlier.
"It is a grueling exercise to pull out the fragile body with every lump of flesh is coming apart amid those obstructions inside the shaft. They have been working and doing the best they can," he added
A 15-member naval team from Visakhapatnam resumed its operation to retrieve the body.
Fifteen miners have been trapped inside the 370 feet flooded coal mine for 42 days now since December 13 at Ksan village in Meghalaya's East Jaintia Hills district.
The families of the trapped miners had said they want the "dead bodies" of the miners to be taken out as per the Supreme Court order.
The apex court, monitoring the rescue operations, has directed the government that the trapped miners have to be taken out of the coal mine "dead or alive".
Chief Minister Conrad Sangma said there were no immediate plans to call of the rescue operations.
The Meghalaya government has roped in several central agencies including a team from Hyderabad-based National Geophysical Research Institute and Chennai-based Planys Technologies for the rescue operation.
Coal India Ltd, Odisha firefighters, Kirloskar Brothers Ltd and Pune-based KSB are dewatering the abandoned coal mine shafts and the main shaft where the miners are trapped.