Raniganj Coal Mine Incident May 2026

Gill looked at the deputy. Then he looked at the crowd of women. “If I send a volunteer and he dies,” he said quietly, “I live with that. If I go and I die… at least I tried.”

He arrived at the site uninvited. The officials, frazzled and defensive, waved him away. “We have experts,” they said. raniganj coal mine incident

Jaswant Singh, a veteran mining engineer with a back bowed by decades underground, felt it first. He was inspecting the third shaft when the tremor hit—not a violent shake, but a deep, guttural groan from the belly of the earth. A split second later, a deafening roar followed, and a wall of water, black as ink and cold as a grave, exploded from a newly cracked aquifer. Gill looked at the deputy

“I came,” Gill said. “Now, who is smallest?” If I go and I die… at least I tried