Pilot sample risk analysis for underground coal mine fires and explosions using MSHA citation data

After three decades of sustained continuous improvement of mine safety performances in the US, mine disasters in 2006 and 2007 compromised an excellent record and presented new challenges and vulnerabilities for the underground coal mining industry. In the aftermath of the incidents, formal investig...

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Published inSafety science Vol. 47; no. 10; pp. 1371 - 1378
Main Authors Larry Grayson, R., Kinilakodi, Harisha, Kecojevic, Vladislav
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Kidlington Elsevier India Pvt Ltd 01.12.2009
Elsevier
Subjects
Biological and medical sciences
Medical sciences
Mine safety
Miscellaneous
Occupational medicine
Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine
Risk analysis
Safety violations
System failures
United States
North America
America
System failures
Mine safety
Risk analysis
Safety violations
Human
Disaster
Explosions
Occupational accident
Work safety
Coal mine
Fires
Risk factor
Underground mining
Occupational medicine
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Summary:After three decades of sustained continuous improvement of mine safety performances in the US, mine disasters in 2006 and 2007 compromised an excellent record and presented new challenges and vulnerabilities for the underground coal mining industry. In the aftermath of the incidents, formal investigations and new scrutiny of mine safety by the US Congress and expert study groups followed. The US Congress passed the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act of 2006 (MINER Act), which mandated new laws to address the issues, including those related to mine fires and explosions from which miners must be protected. The National Mining Association-sponsored Mine Safety Technology and Training Commission report highlighted the role of risk analysis and management in identifying and controlling major hazards, such as fires and explosions. In this paper an approach is given for analyzing the risks for fires and explosions based on the Mine Safety and Health Administration citation database. Using 2006 citation data and focusing on subsystem failures, the methodology is applied to a database for a pilot sample of underground coal mines stratified by mine size and state.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
content type line 23
ISSN:0925-7535
1879-1042
DOI:10.1016/j.ssci.2009.03.004