Critical Analysis of the Queensland Metalliferous Mines Fatal Accident Record

An interesting 2017 thesis from Les Meintjes analysing fatalities in Queensland Metalliferous Mines from 1879 to 2016, with a focus on the latter period’s fatalities.

This was meant to be a mini-post but grew into an article.

[P.S. Yes I know about the Brady review. Check my site as I’ve covered it]

Key findings-

Safety legislation and fatalities:

·      “historical, multiple fatality mine disasters have almost exclusively been limited to coal mines” (p27) compared to metalliferous

·      For background, data from Michael Quinlan’s work on patterns within mining disasters was provided (image 1)

·      Safety legislation appears to have been successful in reducing fatalities based on correlations (*not causation), see image 2 highlighting the average change between the two time periods

·      As of 2016, “improvements in the annual fatality rates have reached a plateau at a single fatality per year”

·       Les notes that “not only has the risk management based legislation positively impacted the industry by continuing the decline in annual fatalities …but additionally it seems to have also substantially decreased the amount of variation in the total annual fatalities that occurred within the industry”.

Industry and other fatality trends:

·       Copper-gold and zinc-lead-silver were “the largest contributors to the fatalities that occurred during the period” (graph not shown here)

·       For equipment – four loaders have fallen into open stopes resulting in four fatalities between ‘86 and `16

·       Of 62 fatalities, 28 were underground and 34 surface based. Even when normalised for # of employees, “surface fatality incidents were still 1.1 times or 10 % more likely to occur than underground fatalities”

·       However, it can’t be conclusively said that surface metalliferous is more dangerous than underground since surface data also includes processing plants, smelters and more

·       Fatalities were more likely on Tues, Wed, mid-week and on Fridays prior to weekends. This may be related to fatigue, or concentration/distraction due to end of rosters, but it’s important to consider that the days of the week correlate more to the rosters being worked

·       No discernible fatality trend was found for time of day or day vs night shift being worked

·       All fatalities except one were males and no discernible trend was found with age

For mechanisms, trades etc:

·       Equipment operators were the most represented occupation category, said to be “unsurprisingly due to the energy sources related to the operated equipment as well as the fact that mining equipment often operate in the most high-risk areas of a mine site”

·       Second most represented occupational category were manual trades, like boilermakers, fitters, shunters etc (see image 3)

·       Prior work found that contractors were more likely to be involved in fatal accidents, likely because they’re often “employed to perform very difficult and dangerous tasks on mine sites”

·       Prior data from 1877 to 2016 classified fatalities by energy – finding uncontrolled gravitational energy the most numerous energy source for fatal accidents

·       This current data substantiated gravitational potential energy as the “greatest risks to employees on mine sites since the early 1900s” (image 4)

·       Interestingly, explosive and chemical energy are so well controlled now that they rarely result in fatalities anymore

Diving into the specific background of energy mechanisms:

·       Vehicle related fatalities are far more represented in modern data compared to historical because of the increases of scale of mine sites requiring larger distances and more vehicles

·       Following gravity, mechanical energy and vehicle energies contribute the most to fatalities (image 4 above)

·       Gravity-related fatalities seem to be decreasing over time, while vehicle-related fatalities are increasing, while mechanical-energy fatalities remain constant

·       From ‘86 to '16 equipment was involved in 27 of 62 fatalities; loader fatalities accounted for 48% of equipment fatalities

·       For equipment/vehicle fatalities – most resulted from crush injuries by a section of the loader, loader overturning or falling into an open stope, or collisions with pedestrians

·       Collisions with pedestrians was the major factor in loader related fatalities

·       It was found that “Insufficient visibility, poor lighting, inadequate communication, inadequate signage and inadequate underground markings” contributed to vehicle fatalities

·       A potential “ticking time bomb” found in the data related to loaders catching fire due to hydraulic failure. Although no fatalities had resulted over 30 years, it has a high potential

Fatalities and PPE and safe work procedures (SWP): See image 5

·       Even though PPE ranks lower on the hierarchy of control, failure of PPE was linked to several fatalities

·       Most particularly, failure to utilise harnesses and lanyards and seatbelts were the most frequent factors related to PPE, followed by absence of gloves and hard hats (* gloves that could have prevented electrocution)

·       [** I’m uncertain about how design was related to the work methods and whether scaffolds etc. could/should have been implemented to avoid reliance on PPE]

·       35 of 62 fatalities suggested that inadequate utilisation or quality of SWPs were implicated in the fatalities. Little data was available on why the SWP wasn’t utilised as expected, however in 5 case the SWP was “non-existent” and >5 cases where it was inadequate

·       [** I struggle with the language of ‘deliberately ignored’ used in the report, since we have no context on why it made sense not to use the SWP, but I couldn’t find much more info on this]

·       Non-existent SWPs were “often related to situations where an employee was performing a task that is very rarely required to be carried out”, and elsewhere a new task was being performed and no SWP had been prepared

·       For inadequate SWPs, this resulted most often by “procedures were not regularly audited to ensure they remained up to date and fit for purpose. Mine sites are complex and dynamic environments where the hazards associated with activities performed can evolve very rapidly due to small permutations on site”

Ref: Leslie MEINTJES. (2017). Critical Analysis of the Queensland Metalliferous Mines Fatal Accident Record

Report link: https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:706506/Meintjes_Leslie_thesis.pdf

LinkedIn post: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/critical-analysis-queensland-metalliferous-mines-fatal-ben-hutchinson-9jj5c