A mining accident is an accident that occurs during the process of mining minerals or metals. Thousands of miners die from mining accidents each year, especially from underground coal mining, although accidents also occur in hard rock mining. Coal mining is considered much more hazardous than hard rock mining due to flat-lying rock strata, generally incompetent rock, the presence of methane gas, and coal dust. Most of the deaths these days occur in developing countries, and rural parts of developed countries where safety measures are not practiced as fully. A mining disaster is an incident where there are five or more fatalities.
Benxi is a prefecture-level city located in the east of Liaoning province, People's Republic of China, south-southeast of the provincial capital Shenyang. As of the 2020 census, its population was 1,326,018 whom 809,655 lived in the built-up area made of 3 urban districts. It was founded as a metallurgical center in 1915. Benxi Iron and Steel Company (Bengang) is the largest employer in the city, and used to be the fourth-largest steel company in China. The second-largest industry in Benxi is coal mining. The city has pollution problems due to steel production and coal mining.
Benxihu (Honkeiko) Colliery, located in Benxi, Liaoning, China, was first mined in 1905. Originally an iron and coal mining project under joint Japanese and Chinese control, the mine came under predominantly Japanese control. In the early 1930s, Japan invaded the northeast of China, and Liaoning province became part of the Japanese-controlled puppet state of Manchukuo. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese forced Chinese labourers—some of whom had been captured from local military organizations—to work the colliery under very poor conditions. Food was scarce and workers did not have sufficient clothing. Working conditions were harsh, and diseases such as typhoid and cholera flourished due to poor sanitation and water supplies. Typically miners worked 12-hour shifts or longer. The Japanese controllers were known to beat workers with pick handles, and the perimeter of the mine was fenced and guarded. Many describe the conditions as slave labour.
The Quecreek Mine rescue took place in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, when nine miners were trapped underground for over 77 hours, from July 24 to 28, 2002. All nine miners were rescued.
The Cherry Mine disaster was a fire which occurred at the Cherry Mine, a coal mine outside Cherry, Illinois, on November 13, 1909. The fire, which killed 259 men and boys, is the third most deadly mine disaster in American coal mining history.
Mine rescue or mines rescue is the specialised job of rescuing miners and others who have become trapped or injured in underground mines because of mining accidents, roof falls or floods and disasters such as explosions.
The Crandall Canyon Mine, formerly Genwal Mine, was an underground bituminous coal mine in northwestern Emery County, Utah.
Events in the year 2007 in China.
The Cross Mountain Mine disaster was a coal mine explosion that occurred on December 9, 1911, near the community of Briceville, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. In spite of a well-organized rescue effort led by the newly created Bureau of Mines, 84 miners died in the disaster. The cause of the explosion was the ignition of dust and methane gas released by a roof fall. Miners would use open oil lamps to provide a light source down in the mines.
Events in the year 2010 in China.
The Shanxi mine blast was a pre-dawn explosion that occurred in a mine in Gujiao city near Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province of China on 21 February 2009. Four hundred and thirty six were in the mine at the time of the explosion. According to the state-run Xinhua News Agency, rescue efforts concluded at 6 p.m. (CST), February 22 with all trapped miners located; the death toll was 74, with 114 in the hospital and five in critical condition. Many of the injured are being treated for carbon monoxide poisoning. The death toll indicates that this is the most lethal accident reported in China's mining industry since December 2007, when 105 people died in a mine explosion—that accident also took place in Shanxi.
Lóngmén Shān, Mount Longmen or Longmen Mountain is a mountain in Shanxi province, China. In March–April 2010, the Wangjialing coal mine flood occurred here.
The Luotuoshan coal mine flood was an incident that began on Monday, March 1, 2010, when a large amount of water flooded the Luotuoshan coal mine near the city of Wuhai in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. A total of 77 workers were underground when they broke into a large pool of Ordovician limestone water early in the morning. By Monday evening, 45 were rescued and one was confirmed dead. All rescue operations were stopped after 14 days, when medical teams believed that the 31 trapped coal miners had no chance of survival.
The 2010 Copiapó mining accident occurred when the San Jose Mine near to Copiapó, Chile, collapsed, leaving 33 miners of Chilean nationality and one Bolivian miner trapped inside about 700 metres below the surface. The men were trapped in the mine for 69 days before being rescued. The discovery of the miners and their eventual rescue received global attention, with over 2000 members of the media reporting from the San Jose Mine. Global leaders expressed good wishes for the rescue and congratulations upon its successful completion.
Ermenek coal mine, owned by a company formerly called Has Sekerler now Özşeker, is a coal mine in the Turkish town of Ermenek.
In February 2016, a series of explosions caused the deaths of 36 people, including 31 miners and five rescue workers, at the Severnaya coal mine 10 kilometres north of the city of Vorkuta, Komi Republic, Russia. The explosions were believed to be caused by ignition of leaking methane gas. It is the second deadliest mining disaster of the 2010s behind the Soma mine disaster, and fourth deadliest of the 21st century thus far.
Rat-hole mining or Rat mining is a process of digging employed in North East India to extract coal, where a narrow hole is manually dug by extraction workers. The practice is banned by the National Green Tribunal; however, the techniques are still employed by artisanal mining operations in several parts of India, especially in Meghalaya.
