Rescue operations are ongoing as nine other people remain trapped in flooded Assam coal mines.

Three miners are feared dead in a flooded coal mine in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, and rescue efforts are continuing to save nine more miners.

Rescue teams have found three bodies but are yet to find them, local authorities in Assam’s hilly Dimahasso district said in a statement on Tuesday. The mine was flooded on Monday, trapping 12 miners.

The Indian military said in a statement that it had deployed divers, helicopters and engineers to help rescue the trapped people.

“The mine was flooded yesterday – the water source was internal. They (the miners) may have hit some water channels and the water came out and flooded the water channels,” Dimahasso district police chief Mayank Kumar told Reuters.

Assam Mines Minister Kaushik Rai said that “water was gushing from a nearby unused mine and workers feared they were trapped 300 feet (91 meters) underground.”

“We are mobilizing resources to rescue them,” he added.

Photos shared by the army on social media showed rescue workers carrying ropes, cranes and other equipment standing on the edge of a large vertical mine shaft.

In eastern and northeastern India, workers mine coal in small mines, often under dangerous conditions. “Rathole” mines In hilly areas. After mining, the coal is placed into boxes and lifted to the surface on pulleys. Accidents occur frequently in these illegal mining operations.

In one of the biggest disasters of 2019, At least 15 miners They were buried while working in an illegal mine in neighboring Meghalaya state, which was flooded by water from a nearby river.