Safety in mining

PRAGUE  Every year the Czech Mining Authority elaborates analysis of the occupational safety and operational safety in organizations carrying out mining activities.

The analysis for the previous year states that there were six casualties during the activities subject to supreme supervision of the National Mining Authority. Compared to the year 2006 this is by one casualty more and by one casualty less than in 2005.

Four of the total number of six lethal accidents occurred in mining of hard coal. The report further states that since 2004 the number of lethal accidents is significantly decreasing compared to the results achieved in the previous years.

The most frequent source of lethal accidents is “The contact with machine device or its part” (two last year, i.e. 33,3 %) and „Material, loads, objects“ (four accidents last year, i.e. 66,6 %).  The analysis of the causes of lethal accidents implies that in 2007 all the accidents were included in the category “Violation of job discipline by the affected". Compared to the previous year 2006 it is 100% growth of lethal accident rate in this category of causes, which has predicative ability, which documents the decrease of professional level of employees in mining.

The CMA analysis concludes that though the development of lethal accident rate in 2007 did not achieve the result of the previous year, in which the number of lethal accidents at work was the lowest in the entire history of Czech mining, it is necessary to point out the decreasing progress in the area of serious extraordinary events in the organizations that are subject to supervision of the Czech Mining Authority.