The cause of the incident and the series of events leading up to it remain uncertain.

Common cause information indicates that the men had been installing a water pipe on top of the mine dump to assist with the processing of chemicals. The water main exploded and the rushing water propelled the two, who were standing near it, into the air.

Netcare911 Paramedics arrived at the scene to find the two men lying nearly twenty meters from the main. Both had sustained serious facial trauma and head injuries. They were treated and stabilised at the scene and transported by ambulance to a nearby medical facility for further care.

“It was on the night shift and rescuers are trying to reach the trapped person,” said Marian van der Walt.

A formal announcement with further details would be made later, she said.

The mine was previously known as Elandsrand.

According to Harmony Gold’s website it recorded one million fatality-free shifts during the last year, but then there were two fatalities.

Wednesday’s development angered the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) as it came shortly after the announcement on Monday that a miner had died at First Uranium’s Ezulwini mine.

NUM spokesperson Lesiba Seshoka said the miner died on 45 level after falls of ground.

His name was not immediately available.

Increased risk

Seshoka said the potential for miners being injured or killed increased in the run up to the Christmas holidays.

This was because mines tried to increase production levels ahead of the break.

He explained that usually, blasting occurred on one day, support structures were then put in place, and drilling began the next day.

However, during this period, drilling could begin on the same day as blasting and this increased the risk for miners.

He said mines used equipment that warned of coming seismic activity, similar to pre-Tsunami warning detectors. When there was an alert, miners could evacuate an area.

Besides this type of monitoring, he urged miners to keep themselves safe by refusing to work if they felt that an environment was unsafe.

The Mining Health and Safety Act did permit dangerous work for miners and the Labour Relations Act made them vulnerable to disciplinary action if they refused to follow an instruction to work, said Seshoka.

If miners encountered any problems after refusing to work on the grounds of a safety concern, they should contact their union representative who would go out to the mine to help them deal with the situation.

The miner at Kusasalethu had been operating a waterjet at the time of the fall of ground, said Seshoka.

- [SAPA]

Also view: www.miningsafety.co.za

One man has sustained a severe injury to his hand in a factory earlier this afternoon.

The worker aged 39 was allegedly cleaning a piece of machinery when he tried to collect something behind the machines rolling mechanism. The man’s hand was then caught in the rolling mechanism and crushed by the two rollers.

When ER24 paramedics arrived at the scene they found the man in the care of the local fire and rescue services. The man was still stuck in the machine as rescue workers looked for a way to free the worker. The man was in severe pain.

Once freed from the machine the man was treated for severe crushing injuries to his left hand. He was transported to Kuilsrivier hospital for further medical care. The appropriate facility will be investigating the incident further.

Andre Visser, ER24

Also view:

Choosing between different types of safety gloves for the mining industry

Preventing hand injuries

When we reflect on accidents and injury we tend to think of cuts, broken bones and blood. We however neglect the risk of other injury that might be less visible – such as that of hearing loss!

Accidents or risks at the workplace that result in loss of hearing might be more threatening to the health of workers as the damage might be more difficult to recover from!

Our Partner site at MiningSafety.co.za has made available a section of content titled “Noise-induced hearing loss protection and Mining Safety”. The suggestions and advice provided is important for many working environments outside the mining industry , and we would like to share some of these suggestions:

Avoiding and reducing exposure to noise induced hearing loss

• Engineering Controls – Apply engineering controls at the noise source or along the noise path to reduce exposures. These controls may include vibration dampeners, absorptive panels, barriers, muffler, or variations in force or drive speed of motors.
• Maintenance – Perform regular maintenance on machinery to prevent additional noise.
• Administrative – Implement administrative controls to limit the exposure time for employees. These controls may include rotating employees in noisy areas, providing quiet breaks for noise-exposed employees, or moving processes such as maintenance or cleaning to quieter workshifts.
• Buy Quiet – Purchase new products or machinery with enhanced noise control.
• Maintain – Noise is often a machine’s cry for maintenance. Repairs can reduce noise levels.
• Block or Isolate the Source – Erect barriers, or relocate noisy equipment (or their operators) behind heavy walls. Doubling the distance from a noisy piece of equipment effectively reduces the sound energy by half (about a 3 dB drop in noise level).
• Schedule Employees – Administrative controls include such actions as giving noise-exposed employees breaks in quiet areas, or rotating employees into noisy jobs for short durations.

For more info view:

“Noise-induced hearing loss protection and Mining Safety”.

A friend in the road safety environment shared a few photos of an accident at an Anglo Coal mine in Witbank. Unfortunately no further info is available as to the well being of the drivers. Transportation related accidents are always of concern to the Mining Companies, and at MiningSafety.co.za we are addressing this aspect of safety in the following section:

Safe use of large vehicle and earthmoving equipment

Efforts to address mining safety extend far beyond only preventing fatalities. There are a wide range of hazardous activities in everyday mining operations – and safety experts are continuously seeking to improve safety awareness, training and providing the best medical response services.

Earlier today the Mining Safety website revealed an interesting Report from the Department of Mineral Resources titled “Operational report Mpumalanga region – April 2011″. The good news is that there have been no fatalities at the mines in Mpumalanga during April.

This Report also provides interesting insights with regards to typical injuries on the mines.

We would like to share an overview of these injuries/ accidents on our mines:

Brief description of accidents which occurred during April 2011

1. Cable head on CM slipped whilst removing faulty cable and injured left ring finger.
2. Arm caught between maintenance bus and gate of section waiting place.
3. Whilst removing CM cutter motor cover it slipped and pinned hand against cutter motor frame.
4. During reclamation of cable from old section, the skid on which the cable was being loaded was pulled forward by the LHD injuring left foot.
5. Pulling tail end with two LHDs in tandem, the bucket of one LHD came loose and struck right lower leg.
6. Finger injured when caught between drill bed and stopper whilst leaning against drill rig in operation.
7. Tyre handler injured left leg when tyre fell onto him.
8. Struck by material when standing close to a tipping truck.
9. Belly plate of machine fell and injured right thumb.
10. Tripped and fell over roof bolter trailing cable injuring left hand.
11. Injured left hand small finger from electrical shock whilst working on panel.
12. Whilst suspending cable injured finger when trapped between cable head and skid of MSU.
13. Tripped and fell over shuttle car trailing cable.
14. CM operator sustained cuts to his head from FOG whilst cutting split.
15. Slipped and fell in plant injuring shoulder.
16. Fell from loader and fractured wrist whilst removing safety net from panel.
17. Head pulley bearing seized causing grease to ignite.
18. Sleeper slipped from hand and fell on foot causing injury.
19. Exposed to blasting fumes due to change in ventilation plan.
20. Slipped and injured ankle on slippery floor in section.
21. Boom gate fell on thumb causing injury.
22. Haul truck drove into safety berm at train bridge haul road.
23. Fly rock landed close to drill crew drilling 344 metres from blast area.
24. Methane flash occurred whilst CM cutting.

View MiningSafety.co.za for more on the efforts to increase safety awareness at our mines!

A senior mining official says a methane gas explosion in a coal mine in southwestern Pakistan has killed at least six miners and trapped 46 others.

Iftikhar Ahmed, a top mine inspector, said Sunday’s accident occurred at a mine in Baluchistan province, some 40km east of the provincial capital, Quetta. The mine is owned by the state-run Pakistan Mineral Development Corporation but leased to a contractor.

Ahmed said the mine was declared dangerous two weeks ago, but the warning was ignored. Rescue workers are trying to reach the trapped miners, but the presence of methane gas is hampering their efforts.

- AP

Also view:

Mining Safety at www.miningsafety.co.za

A video camera determined the man was still breathing on Friday after plunging 58m into the shaft on Wednesday in Jersey Valley, Nevada, northeast of Reno.

A priest had given last rites.

“The mine is so unstable that walls were crumbling and rocks were hitting rescuers on the head when they tried to reach him,” said JoLynn Worley, a spokesperson for the US Bureau of Land Management.

“They’re people who will make every effort to save someone, but they really can’t get to him. It would endanger the lives of rescuers.”

Moving hands

The name of the 28-year-old man from Battle Mountain wasn’t immediately released.

The video camera showed the man was breathing but not moving and had suffered serious head injuries. Images taken on Thursday night revealed he had been moving his hands.

Authorities intended to keep monitoring the mine shaft until the man stopped breathing, Worley said.

“I know some of his family members were out there,” she said.

The man was working in the area with a geothermal drilling crew and visited the shaft with two friends during off-hours.

The shaft is among 10 such openings in the Murphy Mine Complex in Pershing County that originally was mined around 1895 and was last worked in 1945, Worley said.

From 265 000 to 310 000 abandoned mine shafts and openings are scattered across Nevada, she said, and federal and state agencies have an ongoing advertising campaign urging the public to stay away because of the danger.

About 50 000 abandoned mine shafts have been identified as the most hazardous, but the shaft where the man fell wasn’t among them, Worley said.

Authorities have been closing shafts that pose the most danger near urban and recreation areas.

“People’s curiosity sometimes gets the best of them,” she said. “These were way out in the middle of nowhere where few people would venture.”

- AP

For more on Mining Safety also view: www.miningsafety.co.za

Thursday’s judgment against AngloGold came nearly a week after the death of Thembekile Mankayi, whose lawyer said contracted tuberculosis and breathing problems from 17 years of labour in dust-filled mines.

“Given the singular risks of mining, and its unique historical role in our country’s wealth, there is nothing irrational in preserving employees’ common-law claims against their employers …” Justice Sisi Khampepe said in the Constitutional Court ruling.

The decision will allow tens of thousands of mineworkers with lung disease to claim compensation, Mankayi’s lawyer Richard Spoor said.

“For the last 100 years, employers have had effective immunity,” Spoor said.

“It didn’t matter how many people got sick or how many people died – they had no incentive at all to take effective measures to prevent these diseases from occurring.”

Spoor said mining companies will now be held accountable for “[inexcusable] and dangerous” conditions in the mines.

Union to file class-action suit

AngloGold Ashanti said in a statement on Thursday that the company is working to improve underground conditions.

They said they hope the ruling will not threaten the viability of the industry as a pillar of South Africa’s economy and vital in attracting foreign investment.

South Africa’s largest investment in occupational health was researching how to reduce dust in mines, said Jabu Maphalala, a communications adviser for the Chamber of Mines, an industry trade group.

Lesiba Seshoka, spokesperson for South Africa’s National Union of Mineworkers, hailed the court ruling as a “huge achievement”.

“This is a landmark ruling that set a precedent,” Seshoka said. “For many years, miners contracted diseases in mines, and the mining companies fired them with nothing in terms of compensation.”

Seshoka said the union would work with miners to compile a register of people who died from and are still suffering with lung disease to file a class-action suit against the mining companies.

- SAPA

Also view:

Miningsafety: Constitutional Court paves way for mineworkers health claims

Through the development of Miningsafety.co.za we will strive to share the expertise gained in the development of a safety portal with our colleagues in the mining industry. It is our vision that this website will make a significant contribution towards protecting our mining workers from injury and loss of life.

But where did he focus on Mining Safety originate? We would like to share this very informative video on the History of Mine Safety and Health Legislation in the USA: