Health and life concepts and relationships

Health and Life: Improvements in Mining Safety

Workplace injuries are one of the leading causes of fatal and non-fatal injuries in the world. However, some types of jobs and some industries have more injuries than others, simply based on the nature of the work. Though many advances have been made in the past 100 years in regard to worker safety on the job, and a whole organization (OSHA) has been built in the United States around maintaining workplace safety standards, there are still some industries that are dangerous by their very nature. Mining is one of the most dangerous work industries there is, and this is universal; whether the mine is in the United States or another country, whether safety standards are in place to protect workers or not, there are just too many variables in the mining industry that can cause accidents to happen. Sometimes these accidents are fatal, sometimes they are not, but they happen to mine workers far more often than to workers in most other industries. Because of the prevalence of mine accidents, a number of safety measures have either been proposed or introduced in recent years in an effort to improve safety for mine workers while on the job (Dhillon 2010).

Beginning with the Sago mine disaster in 2006, public concern for the safety of mine workers reached an all time high since the 1970s. There were very few mining injuries or accidents in the 1970s, due to new mining safety standards that were introduced then. From that time until 2006, the mining industry seemed fairly stable as far as safety was concerned. However, from 2000 to 2006, there were a number of mining disasters, culminating with the Sago mine disaster, that resulted in 37 deaths. These disasters lead to public demand for additional safety standards for mine workers. Congress duly passed the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act (MINER) in 2006. The MINER act requires many new safety measures in today's mines. These requirements are direct improvements on the deficiencies that lead to the previous disasters and the fatalities resulting from them. The new safety measures of the MINER act are meant to eliminate the conditions that lead to the disasters of 2000 to 2006.

Not only does the MINER act impose fines for violations of safety provisions, it implements a lot of new ones. For example, there must be reporting of any dangerous conditions within mines that may lead to accidents within 15 minutes of discovering such things. There must also be two rescue teams on site at mines and those teams must be capable of responding to any disaster within an hour. Wireless two-way communications and a tracking system capable of allowing those on the surface to easily locate those underground quickly must be present at all mines. Abandoned areas of coal mines must be sealed, and better ventilation of mine shafts must be in place. All of these things and more are part of the MINER act, and have already contributed to a reduction in accidents in mines and greater mine safety since their implementation with the passage of the act (Gurtunca and Breslin 2006).