Excavator machine, operator sink to illegal mining pit

Alwar: A large excavator machine and its operator sank into a water-filled pit about 100 feet deep Friday evening as blasting at an illegal mining site in Odela village in Ramgarh police station area of Alwar district caused a hill to collapse. Teams of NDRF and SDRF along with divers were engaged throughout Saturday but had been unable to retrieve the man's body or the machine until Saturday evening.Tehsildar Ankit Gupta, who was present at the site during the rescue operation Saturday, said the people carrying out the illegal mining had fled after the accident.
Ramgarh DSP Pintu Kumar said illegal mining was going on at the site where the mining lease had been closed several years ago. He said the mining department was informed about it after the accident.Police and administrative officials reached the spot after the accident but high hills, deep pits, and lack of adequate lighting arrangements at the site prevented a rescue operation. On Saturday morning around 9am, teams of NDRF and SDRF along with divers reached the site. However, extraction from the deep, water-filled pit proved to be extremely challenging and remained unsuccessful, officials said. The operator's family members were informed and are expected to reach the site, they said. Villagers said Ramanand Tiwari, a resident of Buxar district of Bihar, was operating the Poclain machine at the site. After the hill collapsed, no trace of the operator or the machine could be found, as both sank into the deep, water-filled pit.Locals said loud blast sounds were heard before the accident, after which a large portion of a hill slipped from a height of about 300 feet. They said around 50,000 tonnes of debris and stones came down, engulfing the Poclain machine and its operator. Villagers alleged that illegal mining had been going on for a long time at the site. They said the mining was carried out at night to evade detection.