4 feared dead, 9 injured in landslide at coal mine in Odisha

Bhubaneshwar: Four workers are feared dead and nine have been injured in a landslide at a Coal India Ltd mine in Odisha, a company spokesman said on Wednesday.

India is one of the most dangerous countries to be a coal miner, with one worker dying every seven days on average in 2018 in mines operated by state-run Coal India and Singreni Collieries Co Ltd, according to government data.

The open cast mine in Odisha, with production capacity of 20,000 tonnes a day, had been shut after the late Tuesday accident, Dikken Mehra, a spokesman for Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd, a Coal India subsidiary told Reuters.

“It will take at least a week to resume operations,” Mehra said.