Ground-Fall Accident Trends in Mining: 2010 to 2019

Details

• Personal Author:
  Khademian Z ; Rashed G ; Sears M ; Xue Y
• Description:
  Mining has been recognized among the most hazardous industries in the United States, despite the significant reduction in injury and fatality rates over the past century. This study focuses on the ground-fall incidents classified in the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) database as "fall of roof, back, or brow from in-place" and "fall of face, rib, pillar, side, or highwall." The main objective of this study is to conduct a comprehensive statistical analysis of the reported ground-fall incidents from 2010 through 2019 including both coal and metal/nonmetal mines. Since most of the ground-fall injuries and fatalities occurred in underground coal mines and were attributed to falls of roof and rib, an additional analysis was directed to evaluate roof- and rib-fall incident trends in underground coal mines associated with the mining method, coal-seam thickness, mine size, and the seasonal effects. The authors studied 8,303 ground-fall incident-narratives from both coal and metal/nonmetal mines and classified them into one of the following types: roof fall, rib fall, face fall, highwall failure, and rock burst. Classifying the ground-fall accidents into these five categories and determining injuries and fatalities associated with each category will help identify areas where additional research is needed and where innovative solutions need to be developed to reduce these potentially severe occupational hazards. These ground-fall incidents resulted in 46 fatalities, 33 permanent disabilities, 3,082 injuries, 119,520 non-fatal days lost, and 12,433 days of restricted work activities. For the period between 2010 and 2019, the average ground-fall injury and fatality rates in room-and-pillar coal mines are higher than those of longwall mines. The average fatality rate in room-and-pillar mines was 2.36 times that of longwall mines. The average injury rate in roomand-pillar mines was 0.82, while it was 0.51 in longwall mines. Of the injuries occurring in longwall mines, 52% occurred during development. The rib-fall fatality rate was higher than the roof-fall fatality rate for both room-and-pillar mines and longwall mines. The severity of rib-fall injuries tends to be higher than that of roof-fall injuries. Ground-fall rates were found to be higher between July and October, reinforcing research findings suggesting this could happen as a result of increased humidity. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Accidents, Occupational Humidity Mining Mortality Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Accidents Coal Mines Fatalities Ground Falls Injuries Metal Mining Mining Industry Roof Falls Seasonal Factors Statistical Analysis Underground Mines Underground Mining

  More +
• Series:
  Mining Publications
• ISBN:
  9781713863700
• Publisher:
  Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration (SME)
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Proceedings
• Place as Subject:
  OSHA Region 3 ; Pennsylvania
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  PMRD - Pittsburgh Mining Research Division
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-20
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20067497
• Citation:
  Proceedings of the 41st International Conference on Ground Control in Mining (ICGCM 2022), July 26-28, 2022, Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. Englewood, CO: Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration (SME), 2022 Jul; :1-20
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2022
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Source Full Name:
  Proceedings of the 41st International Conference on Ground Control in Mining (ICGCM 2022), July 26-28, 2022, Canonsburg, Pennsylvania
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:01f26956ed9a98e0facdd9bec5519a0c43f0313eb959f8dbf9d4d8b77f557c1708c2a218a39bfcce7a6582bc63530305588bd54f4aa792baa6c31c1a3e369408
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/215548/cdc_215548_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.41 MB ]