QUETTA: A coal miner was killed when a landslide struck a coal mine in the Shahrug coalfield area of Harnai district on Sunday.
Levies officials said a miner was trapped after a big portion of the coal mine caved in as the workers were busy digging deep inside the mine.
Local coal miners and rescue team members rushed to the area and took out the injured miner from the mine and shifted him to a hospital where he succumbed to his wounds. The victim was identified as Afzal Khan and he hailed from district Swat of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
As many as 164 labourers working in coal mines have lost their lives and 300 more were facing serious injuries during the last year in various mines of Balochistan.
In most of the incidents, labourers were digging 300 feet deep in coal mines where they reportedly suffocated to death owing to lack of oxygen, President of All Pakistan Labour Federation, Sultan Muhammad Khan had said in July.
According to the report, about 0.3 million labourers were employed across the province as each site consists of more than 1,000 mines including Chamalang, Luni, Harnai, Mach, Duki, Marwar and Low range area of the province.
Sultan had said around 33 cases of death and 70 cases of injuries had been reported during this year in the province due to negligence of the authorities concerned. The main reason of the deaths in the mines was the lack of oxygen and explosion due to methane gas, he had said.
