SHANGLA: The four miners from Shangla, who died in a coal mine gas explosion in Lower Orakzai the other day, were buried in their ancestral graveyard here at Daulat Kallay, Baily Baba, in Alpuri on Thursday.

Coal Mine Workers Rights Association’s president Abid Yar told this scribe that nine workers, including the mine supervisor, were killed in the gas explosion incident in Orakzai district of which four were from Daulat Kallay in Shangla.

He said that their bodies were brought to their village on Thursday morning. He said that bodies of two other miners were brought to Banjar area of Shangla on Wednesday who died in a gas explosion at Sheikhan mine in Orakzai on Monday.

Abid Yar said the mine where the gas explosion took lives of nine workers, was being run illegally as it was the fourth fatal incident there, but the government could not close it despite their requests.

“There are a number of illegal dangerous mines in tribal districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where methane gas was causing deadly incidents, but the authorities have failed to take practical steps to close these mines or ensure implementation of safety measures there,” he lamented.

Those buried in Daulat Kallay on Thursday included Khalid Khan, Fayaz Ahmad, Khan Nawab and Jehan Zada.

Abid Yar claimed that in the Wednesday’s incident the supervisor was trying to make alternative route for ventilation at the mine when the explosion occurred.

Published in Dawn, December 2nd, 2022