The body of one of the nine workers trapped inside a 300-foot deep coal mine in the industrial town of Umrangso in Assam’s Dima Hasao district was recovered on Wednesday morning, said Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.

Sarma said that “21 Para divers have just recovered a lifeless body from the bottom of the well”. He added that rescue operations were in full swing and divers from the Army and the National Disaster Response Force had already entered the flooded mine.

Six workers are still trapped in the mine while the bodies of another two, who were confirmed dead by the state government on Tuesday, are yet to be recovered.

The workers got trapped on Monday due to sudden flooding that left them no time to escape.

Deep sea divers from the Indian Navy joined the rescue operations on Tuesday evening, The Indian Express reported. Personnel from the National Disaster Response Force, the State Disaster Response Force and the Army were already at the site.

“Navy personnel are on-site, making final preparations to dive in after them,” he said. “Meanwhile, SDRF [State Disaster Response Force] de-watering pumps have departed from Umrangshu for the location.”

Sarma added: “Additionally, the ONGC [Oil and Natural Gas Corporation] de-watering pump has been loaded onto an MI-17 helicopter at Kumbhigram, awaiting weather clearance for deployment.”

However, an unidentified official told PTI that the workers' chances of survival appeared grim, although the rescue operation had intensified.

On Tuesday, Sarma said that the mine appeared to be an “illegal” one. He said that the police had filed a first information report in the matter. “One Punish Nunisa has been arrested in connection with the case,” he added.

National Disaster Response Force officer Kuldeep Sharma said that the workers were in the rat holes connected to the central pit of the mine when it got flooded.

“It is a coal mine and there are rat hole mines at a depth of 300 feet or so,” Sharma said. “When the miners were digging there, they contacted some water source and damaged it, due to which it was flooded. At that time itself, using cranes and trolleys, some were rescued by locals but around nine remained trapped.”

Sharma added that the major challenge was the depth of the pit and the flooding that had taken place.

Justice Brojendra Prasad Katakey, who heads a one-man judicial commission looking into allegations of illegal mining in Assam’s Digboi forest division, also told Scroll that it was “definitely a rat-hole mine”.

Rat-hole mining has been banned in Meghalaya since 2014. It is considered to be an unscientific and dangerous technique in which workers enter deep tunnels around three or four feet high to extract coal. However, numerous instances of it have been recorded there and in other states in the North East, including in Assam.