Maitreyee Boruah
Khudeja Begum, daughter of Jakir Hussain, who is trapped in the January 6 illegal rat hole mine accident in Kalamati, shows the last selfie her father sent to her at her Number 4 Sialmari village in Darrang district in Assam on Jan 19, 2025. Maitreyee Boruah/The Migration Story
Number 4 Sialmari (Darrang), Assam: As the morning sunlight brightens the courtyard of Tarabhan Nesa's bamboo hut in Assam's Darrang district, she squats on the earthen floor, looks up at the sky, and breaks into a loud wail.
The 71-year-old widow's only son, Jakir Hussain, 38, is one of nine labourers trapped in a flooded illegal rat-hole coal mine in Umrangso in the hilly Dima Hasao district of northeastern Assam. The accident occurred on January 6, and is the latest in a string of deaths and disappearances in illegal coal mines in recent years. And yet, men like Hussain from this impoverished, flood-ravaged village migrate there for work.
"Amar chele ke niye aso (Bring back my son)." The only request the septuagenarian has for anyone visiting her these days.
Umrangso is an industrial town 300 kms from Hussain’s village and the Kalamati mine, where the workers are trapped, is another two-hour drive from this town.
Of the nine men trapped in the rathole mine since January 6, the bodies of four were retrieved by rescuers. Hussain along with Hussain Ali, 30, and Mustafa Sheikh, 44, both from neighbouring Bagaribari village in Darrang district, Sanjit Sarkar, 35, from West Bengal's Jalpaiguri and Sarpa Barman, 46, from Assam's Kokrajhar district are still missing.
Hussain's family has come to terms with the likelihood that he will not survive in a flooded dark pit located 300 feet underground, weeks after the tragedy occurred. There is still a glimmer of hope that his body will be recovered from the tunnel by the rescue team, allowing the family to give him a proper burial.
Tarabhan Nesa (extreme left), mother of Jakir Hussain, who is trapped in the January 6 illegal rat hole mine accident in Kalamati, her granddaughters and daughter-in-law (extreme right), wait for news about Hussain at their home in Number 4 Sialmari village in Darrang district in Assam on Jan 19, 2025.
Maitreyee Boruah/The Migration Story
Extreme poverty, high illiteracy rates, coupled with climate extremes that have dented farming incomes, have fuelled migration of men from these villages.
Parag Kumar Kakaty, the district commissioner of Darrang district, told The Migration Story that villagers are lured to dangerous mines by the prospect of earning better wages. Villagers also migrate to other states such as Kerala and Karnataka, where there is a high demand for labour in the industrial sector.
He said that government projects including rural jobs employment scheme, financial assistance to youth among others have been implemented to provide livelihood support to the villagers.
“We conduct awareness programs about these schemes in villages. However, we need to do more to prevent people from resorting to dangerous jobs like those in rat-hole mines,” said Kakaty.
‘POVERTY, NOT DAREDEVILRY’
Sajida Khatun, 31, is waiting for her husband's body to be recovered from the mine.
Maitreyee Boruah/The Migration Story
When The Migration Story visited Hussain's village 13 days after the tragedy, his wife Sajida Khatun, 31, had returned from the Kalamati mine where her husband remained trapped.
"Six days after the incident, I left home and my children to travel around 300 kilometres to stay near the accident site for a week, hoping for a miracle,” she said, cooking a potful of rice and dal with some vegetables to be served as lunch for her family.
“I prayed to Allah for my husband’s safety and wept for days before returning home alone. I have lost my husband, but I have to take care of my daughters. These girls are my life now,” she said.
As time passed, Khatun's hope began to fade, growing darker than the treacherous rat-hole mines that have claimed the lives of so many like her husband. "Now, all I wish for is to have my husband’s body found," she added.
Khatun has two daughters, Khudeja Begum, 13, and Jamena Khatun, 10. The eldest daughter kept staring at a picture of her father on her mobile phone. "This is a selfie my Baba (father) sent me on December 26, just before he left home to work in the mine. It's our last memory of him," said the fifth-grade student. Her mother interrupted her and added, "I had asked him not to go to work in that rat-hole mine. We all know how dangerous it is. But he didn’t listen to me. He wanted to provide a decent life for our children and me. We needed the money, and he gave his life for it."
Until last year, Hussain worked as a labourer on a coffee plantation in Coorg, Karnataka. "He spent four years on the plantation, rarely returning home because his employers did not grant him leave. When he did manage to visit, it was only for a short time. The pay was also very low, at just Rs 300 a day. Exhausted and seeking better opportunities, he decided to take a risk. It’s not daredevilry; it’s poverty that drives men from the village to work in coal mines," said Nawbahar Ali, Hussain’s 29-year-old nephew, who works as a teacher in a private school.
Nawbahar Ali, nephew of Jakir Hussain, who is trapped in the January 6 illegal rat hole mine accident in Kalamati, poses for a picture at his village Number 4 Sialmari in Darrang district in Assam on Jan 19, 2025.
Maitreyee Boruah/The Migration Story
"A few years ago, Hussain had worked in the rat-hole mines. He understood the risks involved in this job, but he was probably confident about returning home safely," Ali added.
Ali is one of the few adults in the village of 1,600 people who has completed his education. Most residents either dropped out of school or never attended at all, including Hussain and his wife. He thought his master's degree would fetch him a government job, but is still struggling to fine one.
Livelihood opportunities in the village are nearly non-existent, as farming yields poor crops and limited income.
Number 4 Sialmari village is a part of the riverine areas (locally known as “Char/Chapori”) of the Brahmaputra river and experiences annual flooding between July and August, which destroys crops.
Consequently, many men from the village migrate to find jobs as labourers in factories, plantations, and coal mines, locals said.
Migration to risky job sites like the rat hole mines is also fuelled by an identity struggle. Many of the workers are Bengali Muslims and often are viewed as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, which limits their job opportunities, said scholar and poet Hafiz Ahmed, adding “they have no alternative but to accept any work available to them, even if it poses risks”.
About 8 per cent of Assam's total population (32 million) lives in Char areas, with an alarming 80 per cent below the poverty line, according to official data. The overall rural poverty in Assam is 27.34 per cent, which experts believe is driving migration out of the state.
"Every year, between November and March, during the mining season, 50 to 60 men from our village work in coal mines across Assam and neighbouring Meghalaya," said Ranjit Singh Chauhan, Gaon Bura or the village headman of Number 4 Sialmari village.
"Men from at least 15 neighbouring villages, all char areas, work in coal mines," he added.
RISKY MINES
Screen grab of a television news report on Wion showing rescue operations underway at the rathole mine in Kalamati, Assam
Rat-hole coal mining involves creating narrow tunnels, typically 3 to 4 feet high, that allow workers to enter and extract coal. These horizontal tunnels are called "rat holes," as each is just wide enough for one person to fit through.
Another method of rat-hole mining is called box-cutting, where a rectangular opening, ranging from 10 to 100 square meters, is made. A vertical pit is dug through this opening, reaching depths of 100 to 400 feet. Rat-hole coal mining is common in the northeastern Indian states of Meghalaya, Assam, and Nagaland. The region's hilly terrain and the nature of its coal deposits complicate traditional mining methods, resulting in the use of unsafe and unscientific techniques.
The three coal-rich districts in Assam are Tinsukia, Karbi Anglong, and Dima Hasao. However, currently, there is only one legal coal mine in Assam, located in Margherita, Tinsukia, and owned by Coal India Limited.
Illegally mined coal is used to produce coke, a coal-based fuel, in the Ledo-Margherita belt of Tinsukia district, said Jagadish Bhuyan, general secretary of the Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP), a regional political party that has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take action against all those responsible for the rathole mine accident this month.
Coke production using traditional methods is banned due to its unscientific nature and the significant pollution they cause, he said. But “this low-quality coke is sold in West Bengal and Bhutan. Additionally, illegal coal is utilised in cement and tea factories in Assam and is also transported outside the state”, Bhuyan said.
Anti mining activists have sought stricter enforcement of mining laws.
"Workers often die when they fall off cliffs or collapse inside coal tunnels. These accidents frequently go unreported, and unfortunately, many bodies are never recovered," said Devajit Moran, an anti-mining activist from the Tinsukia district of Assam, which borders Arunachal Pradesh and is notorious for dangerous and illegal coal extraction.
The deaths of miners are a tragic and recurring issue in the region. They often occur due to mudslides, toxic gas leaks, fires, and rising water levels.
On December 13, 2018, at least 15 workers lost their lives in an illegal rat-hole mine due to flooding in Ksan, Meghalaya. On January 21, 2021, six miners died after falling 170 feet at a coal mine near Rymbai, Meghalaya. More recently, on January 25, 2024, six workers were killed and four others seriously injured when a fire broke out in a rat-hole coal mine in Wokha district, Nagaland.
The scale of illegal coal mining has increased over the years despite accidents and even court judgments, coal extraction continuing long after mine leases have expired, Moran said.
"We constantly protest against illegal mining, but nothing changes. Illegal mining is thriving."
On April 17, 2014, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) prohibited rat-hole coal mining in Meghalaya, and this ban was later extended to the entire northeast region.
The Supreme Court upheld the NGT's ban. However, according to findings from the BP Katakey Commission, rat-hole mining continues to occur in Assam's Digboi Forest Division, despite the ban and the awareness of government authorities. Additionally, the Mines and Minerals Development Act of 1957 empowers state governments to take action against illegal mining, including imposing penalties or confiscating materials.
Illegal coal mining thrives largely because of a demand for the fossil fuel - India’s coal production hit a record high of 997.826 million tonnes in 2023-24, as against a demand 1233.86 million tonnes - and a political patronage to the illegal trade, according to campaigners.
Following the accident this month, the Assam government cracked down on illegal mines.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma announced that 220 rat-hole mines had been identified near the site of the recent accident and instructed the Mines and Minerals Department to close all such mines in coordination with central agencies. Officials across Assam have already destroyed more than 250 illegal mining sites and seized equipment from these areas. As a result of the government's actions, over 5,000 migrant labourers have reportedly left the mining regions in the Tinsukia district, according to local media reports.
Following political criticism, the government has also decided to conduct a judicial inquiry and assigned a Special Investigation Team to probe the incident.
Surbanu Nessa, wife of Mustafa Sheikh who remains trapped inside the Kalamati mine, poses for a picture at her Bagaribari village in Darrang district in Assam on January 19, 2025. Maitreyee Boruah/The Migration Story
For Surbanu Nessa, whose husband is among those trapped in the Kalamati mine, the losses don’t just let up.
"Our hut was destroyed by floodwaters last July. We had to relocate. Money has always been scarce, so my husband decided to work in the mine. This was his first time, and now it may be his last. I have five children, all of whom are in school. How am I supposed to survive without him?
THE SHADOW OF DEATH
Dulal Hussain, a rat-hole miner, poses for a picture at his village Number 4 Sialmari in Darrang district in Assam on Jan 19, 2025. Maitreyee Boruah/The Migration Story
Now that Hussain has had an accident, will the villagers continue to venture into those dark and dangerous pathways to extract coal?
“Yes, why not? It is a part of our livelihood. As mine workers, we earn between Rs 1,500 and Rs 2,000 a day. The payment is three to five times better than any other work. We need to feed our families, and we want to send our children to school, and all this requires money,” said Dulal Hussain, 35, who has worked as a rat-hole miner for 15 years. He typically works for two months as a miner, mostly in Meghalaya, and spends the rest of the year working on his farmland growing paddy.
The 35-year-old has often thought about the possibility of death while working in rat-hole coal mines. “How can you not? Death follows us like a shadow in the depths of the earth. First, we are not provided with safety equipment; it’s just a torch strapped to our heads and pickaxes to extract the coal. The coal we extract is hoisted outside the tunnel using large metal boxes operated by a pulley. While inside those rat holes, I keep praying to Allah.”
The mine in Umrangso is not the first quarry to have killed a son from the Darrang district village, located about 100 kilometres from Guwahati.
This riverine area is characterised by narrow alleys and farmlands filled with sand, interspersed with dilapidated bamboo huts.
Sabeni Beya, 67, sits at the doorstep of her hut as she mourns the death of her two sons in mining-related accidents, at her village Number 4 Sialmari in Darrang district in Assam on Jan 19, 2025. Maitreyee Boruah/The Migration Story
Sabeni Beya, 67, has lost two sons in mining-related accidents. "Sabeni didi's (sister's) life is tragic," said Jul Hassan Ali, 45, a farmer and former mine worker. "Her eldest son, Saif Ali, who was 30 at the time, died in a rat-hole mine in Meghalaya's East Jaintia Hills district in 2014. He was the only victim of the incident, and it took days to recover his body from the tunnel," added Ali.
Seven years later, her youngest son, Tayyab Ali, was one of the six victims who died in a coal mine near Rymbai, Meghalaya, on January 21, 2021. He was 27.
No one remembers the exact date or place when Saif died. "It was a long time ago, and I don’t recall those details. However, I can still picture Saif’s face; it haunts me. I don’t even have a picture of him. The death of my youngest son, Tayyab, shattered my heart into pieces,” said Beya, wiping tears from her eyes.
"My home is empty, and so is my heart," Beya said.
There is a story of a mining death at every turn in this village.
Kas Banu holds a passport-size picture of her husband Hussain Ali, who remains trapped inside the Kalamati mine, at her Bagaribari village in Darrang district in Assam on January 19, 2025.
Maitreyee Boruah/The Migration Story
Kas Banu and her husband grew paddy and vegetables in their village, but it was never enough for the family of five. So he took up the mining work about four years ago.
”I never thought my husband would not return home. He was a hardworking and honest man,” she said of her husband, who is also trapped in the Kalamati mine.
“Now, I don’t know what to do,” she said.
Almost two weeks after the Umrangso incident, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma announced an ex gratia payment of Rs 10 lakh to the families of the nine labourers who went missing in the mine.
Hussain's wife Sajida Khatun, who has just returned from the Kalamati mine, told The Migration Story that she received a cheque for Rs 6 lakh from the government. "The remaining Rs 4 lakh will be given once his body is found," Khatun added.
"I need a job to support myself. Otherwise, how will I raise my two daughters and care for my ailing mother-in-law,” said Khatun.
In the neighbouring village of Bagaribari, located three kilometres from Number 4 Sialmari village, the families of Hussain Ali, 30, and Mustafa Sheikh, 44, who are trapped in the Umrangso mine, are in mourning. Their fellow villagers share in their grief. Wives of both the trapped men have also received Rs 6 lakh each in compensation from the government.
Labour contractors scouts these villages to hire workers. "This has been happening for years. Until recently, no one from our village had met with an accident or died in the mines. Now, with two villagers trapped in a mine, I am concerned about the safety of my community," said the village headman Goan Bura Ali, standing on the bank of the Dhansiri River, a tributary of the Brahmaputra River, where his village is located.
During winter, much of the river has dried up, leaving sand in place of water. Bagaribari is situated between the Dhansiri river and Orang National Park. "It is not the river or the forest, but poverty that determines our fate," said Hazra Khatun, 55, the mother of trapped worker Hussain Ali.
Maitreyee Boruah is a Guwahati-based independent journalist
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