At least nine persons were on Saturday feared killed and few others trapped when a pile of coal collapsed at Basundhara open cast mine of Central public sector unit Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL) at Kulda in Orissa’s Sundergarh district.
The mishap, according to MCL officials, occurred at around 9 am when about 25-30 villagers trespassed into an active over-burden (OB) dump-yard at Kulda, nearly 450 km from here, to collect coal shells.
“We have been repeatedly warning them not to enter the OB dumpyard,” MCL spokesperson Dikken Mehra said.
Chief minister Naveen Patnaik announced an ex-gratia of `2 lakh for the next of the kin and has also also ordered an administrative probe into the incident.