A nameless man’s death inside a PSU mine where he was not authorised to be is par for the course here where some of India’s richest coal deposits and poorest citizens coexist.

On Thursday, a day after the roof of an operational ECL coal mine at Kapasara colliery in Mugma area collapsed during illegal mining, killing a man who appeared to be in his 30s, and raising fears that at least two or three others must have met a similar fate, there’s fear on every face.

But people are not worried about dying inside mines. People are worried about not being able to mine, legally or illegally.

Be it Kapasara or adjoining Shivdangal and Subhash Colony, miners and allied labourers such as helpers, coolies among others, wore grim faces as the ECL’s outsourced company STA-BGM & M-SRCC (JV) was shut on Thursday. No one spoke about the dead man lying at the PMCH morgue. Instead, they spoke about the living.

“If the mines stay closed, how will I feed my children?” Munna Kumar, 22, a contractual helper at Kapasara colliery and the father of two, said. He added many daily wagers did not earn anything on Thursday and would have to go home with empty pockets. On illegal mining, he said, “Many people in our village at Kapasara and adjoining areas are engaged in coal picking and illegal mining. There is no other job. Coal is everything. What can people do?”

Nirsa OC Sushma Kumari who had inspected the site at 4am on Wednesday, an hour before the mine cave-in. Picture by Gautam Dey

A clerk of ECL, who did not want to be named, said police FIRs were not the solution to illegal mining. “Unilateral action of police against the coal company (read ECL) will not solve anything. Those engaged illegal coal mining will return once the focus of the police and administration shifts from this latest tragedy. People have no other choice,” he said.

Shashibhushan Tiwari, Mugma area secretary of trade union Rashtriya Colliery Mazdoor Sangh, said illegal coal mining could not be looked at in isolation. “A comprehensive approach is needed. Why not a cooperative of local jobless youth to engage them legally with coal mining work?”

Illegal mining is a way of life, added an educated resident of the area wryly.

“You come to Kapasara any day between 4am and 6am to find over 1,000 people entering dangerous openings, carrying out excavations and bringing out small chunks of coal in sacks,” he said.

The man who died in the wee hours of Wednesday has still not been claimed or identified. “The father of a friend of mine died in Wednesday’s incident,” a teenage onlooker was heard saying at the site on Thursday. Prodded, he clammed up.