Three Women Killed as Coal Pile Collapses at Kathara Colliery in Bokaro

Three women died after a large pile of stored coal collapsed early on Thursday, November 5, at the Kathara Colliery of Central Coalfields Limited in the Bokaro district of Jharkhand, India. Officials said four other people were critically injured.

The collapse happened at Stockyard No. 5 of the Kathara Colliery, inside the Kathara Outpost area in the Bermo subdivision of Bokaro district. Six women and one man were caught in the collapse, officials said, and three of the women were found dead at the site.

What officials have confirmed

Ravindra Singh, the Sub-Divisional Police Officer of Bermo, confirmed the incident. All three women who died were residents of Bandh Basti, according to officials cited in the first wire reports.

Officials described the group in one short line that the wires carried through the morning: "Six women and one man were caught in the collapse."

The early wire counts for the injured were not the same. IANS and Dainik Jagran reported four people critically injured. A PTI headline put the injured at three. The number killed, three women, was the same in the IANS, Jagran and PTI reports.

The people caught in the collapse

The seven people had gone to collect coal for domestic fuel use, according to Jagran, and none of the seven was an employee of Central Coalfields Limited. Jagran reported that the ground where the coal was stored caved in at around 2:30 am local time.

That detail matters for what investigators will look at. The dead and injured were not a work crew on a shift. They were local people at a coal stockyard in the early hours, gathering fuel, when the stored pile and the ground under it gave way.

Investigation under way

An investigation is under way to determine the cause of the coal pile collapse, officials said. No official cause has been given yet, and no official statement from Central Coalfields Limited was included in the first wire reports.

The Orbit Post will update this story in place if officials settle the injured count or release the names and findings that the first reports do not yet carry.