Ash and mud being dumped into a pit to douse the fire. Picture by Gour Sharma

Durgapur, Jan. 1: Leaping flames from an abandoned Asansol coal mine have endangered villages and an Indian Oil Corporation pipeline only 300 metres away.

Firefighters doused the blaze, possibly caused by methane trapped in layers of coal underground, late in the afternoon but the earth continued to belch out thick smoke.

Flames were seen at various places again as the evening descended.

An Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) team visited Jamuria, about 230km from Calcutta, to see if the kerosene pipeline was under threat.

“As of now, the fire is far away. But if it moves northwards with a change in the wind, it will pose a threat to the pipe. We’d have to stop the flow of kerosene,” said one of the visiting officials.

The IOC’s eastern region general manager, G.P. Singh, however, said there was no re-ason to worry. “The fire is far away.”

Oil goes from Haldia to the IOC installation in Barauni, Bihar, through the pipe.

National Highway 2 (formerly GT Road) is just 150m from the fire.

Villagers first noticed the flames in pits created by illegal miners around 5pm yesterday. They called police when several such pits caught fire.

Hundreds of people from the Benali, Satgram, Jadudanga and Mithapur villages rushed out of their homes as a blanket of smoke hung over them. No one, however, was injured.

Police and Eastern Coalfields Ltd (ECL) officials camping in the area have alerted the villagers that they could have to vacate the area in case of an emergency.

The mine, under ECL, was abandoned well before the nationalisation of mines in the early 1970s.

Firemen dumped ash and mud in the cracks to douse the flames today. IOC officials said the area was being constantly monitored and meetings were being held with the directorate-general of mines safety.

K.P. Singh, the general manager of ECL’s Satgram mining area, said: “Smugglers have dug pits to pilfer coal from the abandoned mine. It’s difficult to put out this sort of a fire.”

The villagers alleged that stealing coal was easy because the police were not bothered. “After a mine is abandoned, its pits are sealed. If fresh pits were not opened, the trapped methane would not have come out and caused the fire,” said Abdus Sattar, 45, of Benali.

Burdwan police chief Peeyush Pandey said raids were conducted regularly.