The way to make mining safer is to put systems in place, instead of allowing dangerous conditions to persist and then accusing mineworkers of carelessness when accidents happen. We have traffic lights, lanes for vehicles travelling in different directions and rules to make roads safer, instead of just expecting drivers to be careful. But can we allow companies to kill workers to haul the last remnants of an exhausted seam to the surface? Safety is expensive, and would make some marginal mines uneconomic. Mines can be reinforced to prevent collapse, but this takes time. It is entirely possible to process mine tailings safely, but it costs more. The biggest obstacle to mine safety – the reason so many miners die at work – is profit. But it is cheaper to kill workers than to make mines safer. Surely by now we know how to stop so many workers dying? People have thousands of years of experience and expertise in mining. Occupational diseases kill more people than accidents. A toxic environment that poisons the local community. Miners are expected to accept that dying at work is part of the job.Īnd those who do make it to the surface face a host of diseases and injuries. But this inherent danger, and the relentless drumbeat of death, induces a fatalism, and is an obstacle to attempts to make mining safer. Mining is always going to be more dangerous than office work. We face a numbing daily litany of terrible mining accidents, most so routine they are difficult to tell apart, barely making the local news. Miners dig their colleagues out of the ground and give them first aid. Miners die every day in China’s coal mines, while in Pakistan, accidents happen every week, in almost identical circumstances: a methane gas explosion in an illegal or unofficial mine, with no emergency service at hand, medical assistance, or protocol for dealing with accidents. Lost bodies underground that are never retrieved. In Brazil, as many as 300 people die when the Brumadinho tailings dam collapses. Miners are trapped in a copper mine in Chile, coal miners in New Zealand and West Virginia are killed in accidents. An explosion kills 304 at Soma in Turkey. An open cast mine in the Congo collapses. In Zimbabwe, 28 artisanal miners drown when the gold mine they are working in floods. Text: Kimber Meyer, Léonie Guguen, Walton PantlandĪ methane gas explosion in a coal mine in Pakistan kills four workers, and traps another 40 underground.
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