For seven decades now, the fires have been raging. Spreading silently through the bowels of the earth, they have wrecked lives and ruined homes. For people living in the coal-rich region on the Bengal-Jharkhand border, there was no escaping the mine fires. Illegal coal mining aggravated the problem, while villagers' refusal to relocate and lack of proper technology barred the way to a solution. It seemed that life here would always be lived on the edge of desperation, with the flames threatening to turn hope to ashes.
But not anymore. Latest technology holds out hope that these fires may be extinguished completely. A team of German experts are presently carrying out preliminary studies at two sites near Asansol with an aim to douse the flames for good, with minimum or no relocation. Should they succeed, there will be hope for Raniganj and Jharia, where the situation is worse.
German geologist Dr Hartwig Gielisch and his team have visited coal mines in Russia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Kosovo, Greece, Turkey, China and Pakistan. But the Nimcha and Samdih areas of Asansol turned out to be eye-openers even for them. The carbon monoxide (CO) concentration in abandoned houses was 6,000 ppm. The permissible limit, even inside mines, is 50 ppm. "These houses may have been abandoned but there are people living next door. There is no guarantee that cracks will not develop in the ground in the inhabited houses, resulting in CO emission. If CO concentration in a room suddenly shoots up to 8,000 ppm, the inhabitants will be dead within minutes. We have detected CO concentrations of 28,000 ppm to 65,000 ppm in galleries of illegal mines," Gielisch says.
Fires have been raging under the ground in Nimcha and Samdih for nearly 70 years now. Apart from emission of toxic gases, land subsidence has led to death and destruction. On Eastern Coalfields Limited's initiative, Coal India's R&D Board has approved a project to study the cause and nature of these fires. The ultimate goal is to extinguish them. DMT a German company with long experience in putting out such fires and Indian partner Avantika have sent the German team for the study.
Gielisch heads the team while Nadja Golz is the vice-project leader. The others include geochemist Dr Jens Wiegand, geophysicists Dr Rolf Elsen and Dr Paul Althaus, mining engineers Jorg Walter Kayser and Ulrich Hoischen, gas specialist technician Martin Berghoff, mine surveyor Karsten Zimmerman and geologist (specialist of mine gases) Ralph Schluter. K V Krishna Rao represents Avantika while Dr Satish K Trehan is the project co-ordinator. The team started work on May 12 and expects to wind up their preliminary study by the first week of June. Samples and readings will be taken back to Germany for analysis that may take up to 12 weeks. The final report will be submitted to Indian authorities after this.
"The fires at Nimcha or Samdih cannot be controlled or extinguished till we get to know details like their extent and the depths to which the fires have reached. The team is using infra-red cameras, gas analysers and other equipment on the surface. Drill holes have been bored into the ground to collect samples. Before suggesting measures, the exact condition of the fires have to be known. These include things such as how long they have been burning and whether they are headed up or down. All samples and readings, including 3D images of the fires will be studied carefully," says Trehan whose connections with Kolkata date back to the time when he was a student of the Rajabazar Science College.
Some of the interesting studies being carried out by the Germans include seismo-acoustics and magnetic analysis. Gielisch explains why these are so important. "There are crackling noises underground when coal or stones burn. We have sensors that can pick up these sounds. We then use software to differentiate between these sounds and vibrations from moving vehicles, people walking around and talking or blasts at nearby mines. The sensors are active throughout the night when there is not much disturbance elsewhere. The neutrality of stones also change when they are heated beyond a certain point. This is where magnetic analysis comes in handy. We can learn a lot about the fires from the stones and their magnetism," he says.
Both Trehan and Gielisch agree that the fires started due to illegal mining. No safety norms were followed by locals who dug into the seams at the behest of the coal mafia. Oxygen mixed with the inflammable gases around the leftover coal. This led to oxidation and the burning point was reached before long. The fires leave a sort of vacuum in the galleries and chamber and the roofs soon collapse, resulting in subsidence.