INTO THE ABYSS The rat holes look like bottomless pits when one is descending into them. As the coal carts go up, they eclipse the light. One slip and they can crash, causing certain death. Children spend their days crouched in a hole, digging for coal. Mossy, wet, precarious - the 150 feet deep coal pits in the Jaintia Hills are death traps. These slippery ladders lead into rat holes too small for adults to work in, at Jaintia Hills, Coal Mines in Meghalaya on 12/6/2010.