Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United Kingdom and South Africa, a coal mine and its structures are a colliery, a coal mine is called a 'pit', and the above-ground structures are a 'pit head'. In Australia, "colliery" generally refers to an underground coal mine.
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.
The Nanaimo mine explosion occurred on May 3, 1887, in Nanaimo, British Columbia killing 150 miners. Only seven miners survived and the mine burned for one full day.
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 Beaconsfield gold mine collapsed on 25 April 2006 in Beaconsfield, Tasmania, Australia. Of the seventeen people who were in the mine at the time, fourteen escaped immediately following the collapse, one miner was killed, while the remaining two were found alive on the sixth day by miners Pat Ball and Steve Saltmarsh. Webb and Russell were rescued on 9 May 2006, two weeks after being trapped nearly 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) below the surface.
The Crandall Canyon Mine, formerly Genwal Mine, was an underground bituminous coal mine in northwestern Emery County, Utah.
The 2007 Shandong coal mine flood was an incident that occurred on August 17, 2007 in Xintai, Shandong, People's Republic of China, when heavy rain caused a river to burst a levee creating a flood into two mine shafts. By 8:50 am (1:50GMT), the mine was inundated underwater.
Mining in New Zealand began when the Māori quarried rock such as argillite in times prior to European colonisation. Mining by Europeans began in the latter half of the 19th century.
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.
The 2009 Heilongjiang mine explosion was a mining accident that occurred on November 21 2009, near Hegang in the Heilongjiang province, northeastern China, which killed 108 people. A further of 29 people were hospitalised. The explosion occurred in the Xinxing coal mine shortly before dawn, at 02:30 CST, when 528 people were believed to be in the pit. Of these, 420 are believed to have been rescued.
The Wangjialing coal mine flood was an incident that began on Sunday, March 28, 2010, when underground water flooded parts of the Wangjialing coal mine in the Shanxi province of People's Republic of China. A total of 261 people were in the mine when workers first broke through an abandoned shaft that was filled with water. Over 100 managed to escape, but 153 workers were trapped in nine different platforms of the mine.
Mining is an important industry in Pakistan. Pakistan has deposits of several minerals including coal, copper, gold, chromite, mineral salt, bauxite and several other minerals. There are also a variety of precious and semi-precious minerals that are also mined. These include peridot, aquamarine, topaz, ruby, emerald, rare-earth minerals bastnaesite and xenotime, sphene, tourmaline, and many varieties and types of quartz.
The 2010 Copiapó mining accident, also known then as the "Chilean mining accident", began on 5 August 2010, with a cave-in at the San José copper–gold mine, located in the Atacama Desert 45 kilometers (28 mi) north of the regional capital of Copiapó, in northern Chile. Thirty-three men were trapped 700 meters (2,300 ft) underground and 5 kilometers (3 mi) from the mine's entrance, and were rescued after 69 days.
Energy resources bring with them great social and economic promise, providing financial growth for communities and energy services for local economies. However, the infrastructure which delivers energy services can break down in an energy accident, sometimes causing considerable damage. Energy fatalities can occur, and with many systems deaths will happen often, even when the systems are working as intended.
The Coalbrook mining disaster is the worst mining accident in the history of South Africa. The disaster occurred in the Coalbrook coal mine of Clydesdale Colliery on 21 January 1960 at around 19:00 when approximately 900 pillars caved in, almost 180 metres (590 ft) underground. The mine is situated in the Northern Free State, 21 kilometres (13 mi) south west of Vereeniging. About 1,000 miners were in the mine at the time and 437 died after being trapped, while the rest escaped through an incline shaft. The miners were suffocated by methane gas and crushed to death by rockfall.
Mine safety is a broad term referring to the practice of controlling and managing a wide range of hazards associated with the life cycle of mining-related activities. Mine safety practice involves the implementation of recognised hazard controls and/or reduction of risks associated with mining activities to legally, socially and morally acceptable levels. While the fundamental principle of mine safety is to remove health and safety risks to mine workers, mining safety practice may also focus on the reduction of risks to plant (machinery) together with the structure and orebody of the mine.
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.
The Qixia gold mine accident was a mining accident that occurred on 10 January 2021 in Qixia, Shandong, China. An access tunnel collapsed due to an explosion at the Hushan (笏山) gold mine, trapping twenty-two miners underground. As of 10 February 2021, eleven miners had been rescued, ten were found dead, and one remains missing.
Shandong Mine Collapse: Review of the Month-Long Rescue