India’s coal mines will undergo sweeping safety checks in the wake of a fatal collapse of a mine last week in the eastern state of Jharkhand, coal minister Piyush Goyal said yesterday. The Director General of Mines Safety (DGMS) and independent experts will assess standards at India’s 418 coal mines to prevent a repeat of the disaster, which killed at least 18 people, he said. On 29 December, a large section of the Lalmatia opencast mine caved in. The mine is operated by Eastern Coalfields, a subsidiary of state-controlled mining firm Coal India. Jharkhand state contains around 27pc of India’s 301.5bn t coal deposits, according to the coal ministry.
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