For the next 48 hours, Gill refused to leave the mine. He sent food and milk down the hole. He sang folk songs over the telephone line to keep morale up. He personally strapped every single miner into the capsule—each time whispering, "Close your eyes. Breathe slow. You are going home."
For his bravery, Jaswant Singh Gill was awarded the Sarvottam Jeevan Raksha Padak, India’s highest civilian gallantry award for rescue operations. To this day, the rescue of 65 miners from the flooded Raniganj coal mine remains one of the greatest and most audacious mining rescues in world history. They called it a miracle. But miracles, as Gill proved, are just stubborn men who refuse to let go. Mission Raniganj
Gill shouted from the bottom: "Don't pull! Push! Twist the cable!" For the next 48 hours, Gill refused to leave the mine
The crew, sweating through their shirts, manually rotated the huge winch. The capsule scraped free. Sixty seconds later, the old man’s head emerged into the sunlight. He was alive. He personally strapped every single miner into the
It was November 1989. The air in Raniganj, West Bengal, was thick with coal dust and the rumble of machinery. For the miners at the Mahabir Colliery, it was another sweltering day inside the earth’s belly. But 300 feet below the surface, a silent enemy was waiting.
The first problem was time. The trapped miners had only flashlights and a single telephone line that still crackled with static. Their voices, relayed up, were haunted: "The water is rising. We can see the ceiling getting closer. We're singing hymns."