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Safety When Mining
Mining is a dangerous profession, and the safety of the mine workers is an essential feature of the industry. Statistics point toward the surface mining is less dangerous than underground mining and that metal mining is less dangerous than coal mining. A study of the frequency and strictness of mishaps shows that the dangers come from the nature of the operation. In all underground mines, rock and roof falls, flooding, and insufficient ventilation are the biggest hazards. Big explosions are typical in coal mines, but more miners undergo accidents from the usage of explosives in metal mines. Accidents associated to the transporting system compose the second biggest danger ordinary to all kinds of mines.
A number of weakening hazards that have an effect on miners exist with the passage of time and that are connected to the quality and character of the surroundings in the mines. Dust that is caused throughout mining operations is in most cases harmful to health and causes a lung disease known as black lung, or pneumoconiosis. Certain fumes caused by incomplete dynamite explosions are tremendously poisonous. Methane gas, originating from coal strata, is constantly hazardous even though it is not poisonous in the concentrations that are usually encountered in mine air, and radiation might be a danger in uranium mines. A tight and active safety program is frequently in operation in all mines and particular care is taken to instruct the miners when it comes to safety precautions and practices and to ensure that accident rates are less frequent.
Federal and state legislation has placed a good number of operating regulations when it comes to dust and gas concentrations in the mines, as well as common rules concerning roof support. Regardless of this, local conditions can unexpectedly alter the atmosphere in the mines and cause it to be hazardous. The Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act, passed in December 1969 and expanded in 1977, gave health compensation to miners and placed strict controls as far as coal dust, methane gas, escape ways, roofing, wiring, and other mining dangers.
Some hazards are associated with the local geology and the state of stress in the rocks that are in the mine. The mining operation occurs in the shifting of loads on the strata, and in severe cases such shifts might put pressures on a dangerous section of rock that goes beyond the strength of the rock and could end in its unexpected collapse. This phenomenon, which is known as a rock burst, happens in most cases in deep mines, and research is under way to get rid of this danger.
Education, experience, research, social consciousness, and government regulation have helped to reducing the accident rates in the mining industry. In coal mining in the United States, for instance, 346 miners lost their lives in 1930 for every 100 million tons of bituminous coal that was produced, but in 1990, the number of fatalities was less than one for the same amount of coal. There has been an estimate that 60 to 75 percent of all mining accidents are preventable and are the consequence of human error.
Mining operations are considered to being one of the most important sources of environmental degradation. Social consciousness of this dilemma is of a global nature and government proceedings to stem the damage to the natural environment have guided to a number of international conformities and laws aimed at the impediment of activities and actions that could negatively affect the environment.
