Kitchen of a muddy house caved in while cracks appeared in walls and floor of five other houses in the underground fire affected Tetulmudi slum area of Dhanbad, about 10 kms away from Dhanbad district headquarters during the wee hours of Monday.

Though, no injuries was sustained by anyone in the area during the incident but irate local incidents who came out of their houses after the incident due to fear of further subsidence carried out gherao of the coal production site of private excavator, Hilltop Mining Company Pvt Ltd, working on behalf of BCCL and demanded monetary compensation for the affected families.

The protesters charged the private excavators of reckless mining and also accused the government of not properly implementing the Jharia master plan meant to shift around 1.04 lakh families living in 595 underground fire affected sites to safer places.

Talking to the media at the incident site, Chandan Singh, a resident of Tetulmudi Basti whose kitchen caved in during the incident said, “All of our family members were in deep slumber when the incident took place. We heard a loud bang and came out of the house.”

“Nothing was visible in the dark but I somehow mustered courage and went backyards to find my kitchen inside the ground along with all the articles, including utensils, refrigerators etc,” said Singh and added that despite being informed, neither the BCCL authorities nor the local administration reached the site, forcing them to resort to protest at the private mine excavator’s production site.

“We won’t allow the production to resume until the BCCL authorities reach the site and take steps to fill up the subsidence site to stabilize the area and also provide us compensation for the damage caused to our house,” said Singh.

Gudiya Devi, wife of Chandan Singh, while talking to media said, “ All the family members including me, my two children and husband took shelter in the neighbor’s house after the incident as we were greatly terrified.”

Harihar Chauhan, site in charge of Hilltop Mining Company Pvt Ltd said, “Our production site is around 600 meters away from the subsidence site so there is no meaning of carrying out protest at our production site as mining activity at our site has nothing to do with subsidence.”

“Moreover, the area has been declared dangerous much ahead and residents have been given notices to vacate the place but they are forcefully living at the site,” further said Chauhan.