The body of the person who died has been recovered. Relief teams including state and national disaster relief force are at the spot.

The collapse happened in the Billi Markundi mining area under the Obra police station limits in Sonbhadra on Saturday.

Relief operations underway

Apart from NDRF and SDRF, rescue teams from two private companies and the Obra Thermal Power Project also carried out rescue operations on Saturday, said District magistrate Badrinath Singh who reached the spot after the collapse, reported Hindustan Times earlier. He added that additional equipment and machinery was also being brought in to help with the rescue ops.

While the cause of the collapse is not yet know, the district magistrate said that a probe would be initiated to ascertain the same.

According to a worker, Chhotu Yadav, who is a resident of Karmasar, his two brothers — Santosh Yadav and Indrajit Yadav — were among those trapped under the debris.

Uttar Pradesh minister said on Saturday that around a dozen people were working on the mining site when the collapse happened and that a probe would be conducted to ascertain what led to it. He said that strict action would be taken against those found responsible for the incident.

According to another worker, the mining site had nine compressors operating on the spot at the time of the collapse and one person was deployed at each compressor.

Among those present at the site on Saturday were Obra’s sub-divisional magistrate, Vivek Kumar Singh, circle officer Harsh Pandey, Obra police station in-charge Vijay Chaurasia and Chopan police station in-charge Kumud Shekhar Singh.