The sorry state of coal mines in Balochistan

While the Pakistani state is in their deep slumber, poor Baloch workers are losing their lives with no means of adequate amenities

Does the life of a laborer have no importance? His whole family is associated with a person. Due to the absence of facilities in the coal mines of Balochistan, poor laborers are losing their lives every day. In the year 2022, 288 miners lost their lives in accidents across Pakistan, in which the highest number of 166 miners belonged to Balochistan. During the first five months of this year, 18 accidents took place in the coal mines of Balochistan, in which 24 miners died.

In early 2023, the Human Rights Commission, which works for human rights in Pakistan, expressed concern in its ‘fact-finding report’ in the context of accidents in the mines of Balochistan in 2022 and demanded that the central government should ensure that the federal government implements international laws to protect miners.

According to the reports of All Pakistan Labor Federation, more than 3800 coal mines are currently active across Balochistan, in which more than 100,000 workers extract more than 10 million tons of coal every year. Coal mined from Balochistan alone accounts for more than 50% of the total coal mined in Pakistan on an annual basis.

It is a matter of grave concern that every year hundreds of workers lose their lives due to lack of adequate facilities in these mines and their entire families suffer along with them but they say that the life of the poor has no value to anyone. It doesn’t matter.

Two laborers, Sharaf Khan and Abdul Baqi were stuck in a mine about 900 feet deep for the past one and a half months in Miraj area of Dukki district located in the north-east of Balochistan and have not been able to come out yet. His brother Abdul Basir says that the grief and yearning of his brother and cousin who were trapped on May 4 has been forgotten by the world and the media too. They are trapped inside the earth, but we who are living on the earth have no peace either. There is no rest anywhere. Abdul Basir says that his eight brothers and relatives have been forced to spend day and night here in severe agony for the past 40 days. Eid is fast approaching which is why we are more concerned.

Abdul Baqi did not visit his home even on Eid-ul-fitr in the quest of earning a little to sustain his family. They say death gives lasting peace but what about the kin of those who are not even sure whether their beloved is dead or alive? The self-help rescue operation by the workers and the families of the trapped miners continues 24 hours a day in four six-hour shifts, with eight to twelve volunteers in each shift. There are four to six miners, loaders and engine operators.

Mines Inspector Maqsood Ahmad, one of the three mines inspectors, in charge of Dukki’s more than 1,400 mines, said that most of Meraj’s coal mines are earthy rather than hard and rocky, with water-logging and mine collapses. Everything has turned to mere mud.

Maqsood further said that the Mines Department does not have any machinery for rescue operations and no annual budget is approved.

Maqsood Ahmed says that 40 years ago, seven miners were trapped in a coal mine in Dukki in one of the same incidents as of now out of which the bodies of three were recovered after four years, while the rest have not been recovered yet.

According to the All Pakistan Labor Federation, an organization that works for the rights of workers in Pakistan, there are more than a thousand illegal coal mines in Balochistan, in which mining continues. Thousands of coal mine contractors in Balochistan are extracting coal without any registration which not only sell thousands of tons of coal on daily basis without any tax but also hides it when an accident happens. Reporting of the accident is still far-fetched.

Sher Muhammad Kakar, the leader of the miners’ rights organization in Dukki, says that due to the lack of safety measures, the lives of the miners are at stake. Workers are dying as a result of accidents every day, but the government and the coal mine owners have no adequate arrangements and resources for the prevention of these accidents and rescue in case of accidents.