Rat Hole Mining - Science Tutor

What is rat-hole mining?

It involves digging of very small tunnels, usually only 3-4 feet high, which workers (often children) enter and extract coal. O P Singh, professor of environmental studies at North Eastern Hill University (NEHU) in Shillong, told The Indian Express that rat-hole mining is broadly of two types. “In side-cutting procedure, narrow tunnels are dug on the hill slopes and workers go inside until they find the coal seam. 

The coal seam in hills of Meghalaya is very thin, less than 2 m in most cases,” he said. In the other type of rat-hole mining, called box-cutting, a rectangular opening is made, varying from 10 to 100 sq m, and through that is dug a vertical pit, 100 to 400 feet deep. Once the coal seam is found, rat-hole-sized tunnels are dug horizontally through which workers can extract the coal.