Indian Navy personnel come out of a coal mine during a rescue operation in Ksan, in the north-eastern state of Meghalaya, India, where no headway has been made to retrieve the bodies of 15 illegal miners. Despite a ban on so-called ‘rat-hole’ mining, accidents have continued in the mountainous state, where children are sometimes put to work in the narrow horizontal tunnels that fit only one person. A 65 m main-shaft water column has proved the main rescue hindrance. A citizen’s report submitted to court alleges that there are politicians who have stakes in rat-hole mining.