A part of the mining project is most unlikely to return to production within a year even if remedial measures are taken while partial production can resume in another part in the near future, making the overpriced coal even costlier. This situation could even worsen, either resulting in a massive cost-escalation or abandonment of the project, they pointed out.

In any case, the present situation will jeopardise the operation of the highly-inflated $220 million coal-fired 250 megawatt power project from December.

On Sunday, the energy ministry formed a four-member committee headed by the managing director (MD) of Barapukuria Mining Company (BMC), a subsidiary of Petrobangla, to investigate the incident. The committee does not have a single mining engineer in it. It has been asked to submit report within 10 days.

Questions have been raised about this committee since the MD himself is directly responsible for the faulty operation and disaster of the mining project.

Both the mine and power plant are being developed under a flawed Chinese supplier's credit while all the contractors and even consultants are represented by a single businessman close to the ruling BNP -- who made the projects a financial mess for the nation. The mining project is already four years behind schedule because of design flaws that have heavily raised the costs.

The mining project that started trial production on September 6 was shut down on Wednesday when the miners at a depth of around 1,100 feet found an alarming increase of carbon monoxide. They were noticing a gradual increase of this gas over the previous week.

Mine sources said this disaster has happened because the Chinese contractor CMEC left highly inflammable coal pits exposed to air since May and the mining authority overlooked the matter even when it took over the mine for trial production three weeks ago.

Mining rules dictate that coal pits should not be left exposed to air for more than 24 hours as this can lead to self-combustion of the coal and emission of gas. Carbon monoxide also causes instant death.

"It is most likely that there was fire in the coal layer. But this fire has automatically died down due to lack of oxygen and as a result the mine has been saturated with carbon monoxide," said one source.

As per mining rules, CMEC was supposed to use yellow mud to cover the exposed coal pits. In addition, it was supposed to keep the mine temperature

below 32 degree Celsius. But none of these were maintained despite repeated reminders at different meetings with Petrobangla officials.

"They had the equipment to pump in yellow mud. They had special fans and two cooling machines which they did not operate," the source mentioned.

Besides, CMEC did not even supply gas mask and other safety equipment required for emergency manual operation inside the mine.

"In the mining business, it is an international rule number one that you can't leave any issue for tomorrow. You can't neglect anything. If you do, the losses will be enormous," he pointed out.

CMEC had developed 18 kilometres of tunnels and two layers for mining. It was working in one layer and the second layer is to be used after five years.

The Barapukuria project was approved in March 1992 with the target of completion on July 31, 2001 at a cost of Tk 887 crore. But the project was suspended when sub-soil waters started gushing in at a rate of 700 cubic metres from April 5, 1998 at a depth of 1,100 feet. This happened because of design flaws, according to official sources.

Through repeated rescheduling of deadlines, cost escalations and various types of irrational contractual extensions, the contractor was given seven years extra time to finish the job. Even it was given a five-year maintenance job from June.

The mine was producing 700 to 800 tonnes of coal a day from September 4 with the target of increasing the production to around 2,000 tonnes a day or 7 lakh tonnes a year.