- Photo by Reuters

ABBOTTABAD/QUETTA: At least 29 workers were trapped inside two mines on Wednesday — 15 in Mach area of Balochistan and 14 in Tarnawai area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. However, 14 of them were later rescued. Fourteen workers were trapped inside a mine when heavy rocks blocked its entrance in Batt Kanal village near Tarnawai area, about 30km from Abbottabad.

AFP quoted local officials as saying that at least 11 miners were feared dead.

The workers could not be rescued till late in the night. Local people made hectic efforts, but in vain, to rescue the workers as heavy machinery could not be sent to the area.

Police said the workers, including owner of the phosphate mine Muhammad Younis, were busy in excavation when heavy rocks rolled down the hill and blocked the entrance, trapping all of them inside.

Abbottabad DPO Karim Khan told Dawn that four platoons had been sent to the area for rescue operation. The SP headquarters and the Abbottabad DSP are supervising it.

The DPO said rescue teams were facing difficulties in reaching the place, adding that an army engineering unit had been contacted and a special team would be called to carry out the rescue operation.

Ambulances have been dispatched to the area to shift the injured or the dead to hospital. Rescue workers were trying to open the mine entrance by blasting the rocks.

Those trapped inside the mine were identified as Razaq Abbasi, Naveed Shah, Sardar Waheed, Muhammad Waheed Gujar, Sheikh Younis, Saeed Shah, Naseeb Shah, Muhammad Javed, Muhammad Bashir, Muneer, Waheed Shah, Riaz Shah, Abbasi Ali Shah and Sabir.

Meanwhile, 15 workers were trapped in a coalmine which collapsed in the Mach coalmine field, some 80km east of Quetta.

Levies sources said the workers were digging out coal in the mine of a local company in Bahatar area of Mach when it suddenly collapsed, trapping them about 1500-foot deep.

Soon after the incident, government teams rushed to the site and launched a rescue operation. “Rescue teams have recovered 14 miners trapped inside the collapsed coalmine,” an official of the Directorate of Chief Inspector of Mines said, adding that efforts were under way to rescue the one still trapped inside.

Sources said the coalmine had collapsed because of heavy snowfall in the area.

More than 40 workers were killed when a mine collapsed in Balochistan in March last year.

AFP adds: The Abbottabad incident took place when the miners were having lunch inside the mine. “It was a huge landslide. Eleven of them are trapped and their survival will be a miracle,” Syed Imtiaz Hussain, the top government official in the area, said.

He said continuous rain was hampering rescue efforts.

Police said the men who were trapped were poor labourers and that local residents were digging with shovels to help rescue them.