28 March, 2011
The union that attempted to rescue coal miners inside a Soreng district colliery in Pakistan last week has strongly criticised government indifference of the 20 March tragedy. ICEM-affiliated Central Mines Labour Federation (PCMLF) held an angry protest on 22 March in front of the Quetta press club, demanding two resignations and calling for a judicial enquiry from the Balochistan High Court.
Fifty-two miners died instantly 1,200 metres underground after three methane gas blasts occurred in a mine operated by an unregistered contractor. The mine is state-owned by the Pakistan Mineral Development Corporation (PMDC).
Only two weeks earlier, PCMLF and concerned people in the Soreng area, 35 kilometres east of Quetta, demanded closure of the colliery because of high methane gas levels.
Sultan Muhammad at Quetta Press Club Rally
It took government rescue teams and emergency medical services eight hours to respond to the mine blasts. Miners of PCMLF first entered the mine in the aftermath of the explosions and dug with shovels and bare hands in hopes of finding survivors. What they found and brought to the surface were 12 mangled bodies. A 25-year-old miner who spent much of Sunday, 20 March, on the rescue described high levels of gas fumes and wood support structures that had crumbled, leaving massive debris blocking passageways.
When mine safety officials did arrive, they blocked further efforts of miners to enter. “Directly and indirectly, many people and many family members are affected by this disaster,” PCMLF General Secretary Sultan Muhammad told the ICEM. “We are helping the families of victims as best we can with our union’s limited resources.” One family reportedly lost seven members in the 20 March tragedy.
“It is a difficult job because miners and their families know they have to go five to seven thousand feet deep inside the mine,” said PCMLF President Bakht Nawab Yousfzai. “Nobody ever knows if they are going on their last journey.”
Efforts to correctly identify the deceased miners were made difficult because the contractor had kept no visible employee roster.
At the Quetta manifestation last Tuesday, PCMLF demanded that PMDC pay one million rupees each (€8,300) to the families of the dead miners. They also demanded the sacking of Baluchistan Mines and Minerals Minister Mushtaq Raisani and Chief Mines Inspector Iftikhar Ahmed.
PCMLF seeks involvement in a tri-partite panel to investigate the blasts. The union also pointed to a number of threatening safety hazards at the same mine in recent months, but reporting of those incidents went unheeded.
In a 22 March letter to PCMLF, ICEM Mining Sector Chairman Andrew Vickers of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) of Australia said: “I offer my personal and our collective condolences to the families and friends of miners killed in this latest inexcusable disaster in the coal mining industry. Your suffering is understood and shared by us who have lost too many sons, brothers, and fathers to inexcusable disasters in our mining industry.”