The word “safe” is all relative
“All 486 trapped miners found safe” is what the headline read on a recent story about an underground fire at a gold mine in South Africa.
Normally stories about a mine fire, especially one as deep as the 2300-metre level as this one was at the Harmony Gold Mine’s Kusasalethu mine west of Johannesburg, usually result in tragic news and even worse headlines.
Luckily this time, however, the Kusasalethu story is a good one for Harmony Gold Mines and its miners but as many of you know, that’s not always been the case for South African miners as they work in the deepest and more questionably safe mines in the world.
Perhaps “questionably safe” are not the proper words to use because many South African mines have been notorious for being outright ‘dangerous’ because of their depths, their insane production schedules, and most of all, their lack of care and attention to safety for their miners.
Like the Chinese in many respects, South African mines have a bad reputation for being the most dangerous in the world and until just a couple of years ago, the mining industry recorded more than 100 deaths per annum.
That’s far too many, and while Mine Minister Ngaoko Ramatlhodi proudly announced late last year that the number of fatalities had dropped to its lowest in the mining industry’s history, with 84 deaths, he also admitted that deaths in the gold mining sector alone rose in 2014 to 44 from 37 in the previous year.
The Kusasalethu fire could have easily set an all-time record had those 486 trapped miners not made it back to the surface.
The electrical fire that threatened their lives could have probably been avoided through proper service and maintenance of underground equipment. I’m just speculating, but given past reports of deaths and their causes in the deep mines of South Africa, it’s probably safe to say that they weren’t; at least to Canadian standards.
In fact, I’m willing to bet that many of the mines around the world for that matter, wouldn’t pass what health and safety inspectors in this country consider ‘safe to operate’ conditions.
In Ontario, for example, the Ministry of Labour is hell bent on making sure that the 38 mines currently operating in the province (with another eight scheduled to open in the next decade) meet its tough safety conditions.
Much like a quarterback ‘blitz,’ the Ministry is sending in ‘special teams’ of inspectors and engineers to tackle the problems associated with mine safety. However, unlike in football where the ‘blitzes’ come relatively unannounced, those by the Ministry are pre-arranged but with tough consequences should the targeted mine not comply with health and safety legislation.
In other words, mine owners and operators in Ontario are given a head’s up about what’s coming and that they’d better respond accordingly to what the government wants in terms of a safe workplace.
During last year’s blitz, Ministry inspectors conducted 55 visits to 49 mines and related workplaces and issued 169 orders under the Occupational Health and Safety Act and Regulations for Mines and Mining Plants for various violations; including four ‘stop work’ orders.
In addition to the 169 orders, the inspectors also issued an additional 256 orders for violations, including explosives storage and handling sections of the mining regulations. Many of those violations, according the Ministry of Labour, could have resulted in serious injuries to workers and the public.
As of January 2015, however, approximately 90 per cent of the orders issued during the blitz have been complied with.
Even with Canada’s safety reputation, there is still room for improvement but I’m sure if our safety standards were applied around the world, headlines with the word “safe” in them would appear more regularly when talking about mines.
Comments