SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, Nov 10: Panic prevailed among residents after land subsided and poisonous gas began billowing out on Jharia-Lodna road near Lodna Colliery High School, around 20 km away from here on Thursday evening.
An official said the incident occurred at around 6.30 pm. A 50-feet wide and 20-feet long crater formed and a thick sheet of gas began billowing out continuously from it.
After getting information, Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL) Lodna Colliery Area officials reached the spot and got the area barricaded for the safety of people.
Project Officer (PO) Lodna Colliery Area AK Pandey told media persons that the area falls in the underground fire zone. Unscientific mining done by private colliery owners before nationalization caused the subsidence.
He denied that a heavy blast triggered for mining in the colliery caused the subsidence.
However, residents held the BCCL management responsible for the incident.
The members of the Regional Safety Advisory Committee of Lodna Colliery Bihari Lal Chouhan, Lalan Paswan, Sanjay Yadav, Haji Ali Ahmed alleged that the colliery management is creating panic through heavy blasting in mines to give the area for mining.
During the Durga Puja festival, a similar crater had appeared in the area but the BCCL management did not take that seriously.
Lodna Colliery High School is hardly a few hundred yards away from the incident spot. The residents of the nearby area said that a Tractor was carrying stone and sand for drainage construction of the school when all of a sudden land subsided near the road.
