The single-storey building of a private primary English medium school in West Burdwan’s Andal caved in and several houses tilted and developed cracks following subsidence on around 200sqm of ECL leasehold land on Tuesday evening.

At least 110 students studying between nursery and class IV of the school had a narrow escape as the incident occurred after classes were over.

Students were supposed to write their final exam on Wednesday.

They will do so in a state primary school arranged by the Madanpur gram panchayat on Thursday.

“I got the news on Tuesday night and rushed to the spot only to find my school building collapsed. I am lucky the incident didn’t happen when classes were going on or else that could have been fatal,” said Durgabati Devi, the principal of the school in Kajora village.

People came rushing out of their homes when walls started developing cracks. Many of the houses became tilted.

“I was sitting in the courtyard of my house when I felt a jolt and heard a cracking sound. Soon the courtyard and the walls of my house developed cracks. I came out of my house with my wife and children. Those of us who live in the coal mining area are in constant threat of subsidence,” said Pradip Poddar, a local villager.

Local Trinamool Congress leader Moloy Chakraborty blamed the ECL for not
illing up voids with sand after extracting coal from beneath.

“The ECL is busy extracting coal and making profit while endangering the lives of the people living here. They are not filling up the voids properly, causing such incidents of subsidences,” said Chakraborty.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee in her administrative review meetings here has often raised the issue and blamed the Centre for doing nothing.

ECL officials denied the charges and said the area is prone to subsidence. They stressed the area earmarked was unsafe for living. “We have demolished all unstable structures on the affected land surface after the incident and filled up the voids with sand and debris,” said an ECL official.

A vast area of ECL’s leasehold 1,600sqkm surface in Asansol and Raniganj coalfields was declared unstable and unsafe for human habitation years ago. The state urban development and housing departments together are constructing dwellings with the central funds on state government land to rehabilitate around 4 lakh people living in the subsidence-prone area.