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Mining Accidents, Deaths, Cave-Ins, Rescues, Mine Safety and Industrial Disease

One presumed dead, two injured in accident at B.C. gold mine – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – February 2, 2021)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

One person is presumed dead and another two were injured after an accident at a gold mine in interior British Columbia.

New Gold Inc. said in a release that a mud rush occurred at its New Afton underground gold mine west of Kamloops early Tuesday morning and that a contract driller had likely died. Two other individuals suffered non-life-threatening injuries.

The Vancouver-based miner has suspended production at the site while an investigation into the accident is being conducted by the RCMP, B.C.’s Ministry of Mines and the company’s internal team.

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Miners rescued: Is China’s mining industry becoming safer? (Associated Press – January 24, 2021)

https://www.csmonitor.com/

Eleven workers trapped for two weeks inside a Chinese gold mine were brought safely to the surface on Sunday, a landmark achievement for an industry long-blighted by disasters and high death tolls.

State broadcaster CCTV showed workers being hauled up one-by-one in baskets on Sunday afternoon, their eyes shielded to protect them after so many days in darkness.

Some brought their hands together in gratitude and many appeared almost too weak to stand. They were swiftly covered in coats amid freezing temperatures and loaded into ambulances.

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Bittersweet victory for Sudbury woman who lobbied for dad’s health benefits – by Ron Grech (Sudbury Star – January 21, 2021)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Janice Martell worked on behalf of miners who had been exposed to McIntyre Powder

Janice Martell’s father Jim Hobbs didn’t live to see the fruits of his daughter’s lobbying efforts on behalf of miners who had been exposed to McIntyre Powder.

Hobbs, who worked at a uranium mine in Elliot Lake, developed Parkinson’s disease later in life and passed away in May 2017 at the age of 76.

Three years after his death, the Workplace Safety & Insurance Board acknowledged the “increased risk of Parkinson’s disease in McIntyre Powder-exposed miners.”

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[Uranium Mining/Navajo] A toxic history (Moab Sun News – January 15, 2021)

https://www.moabsunnews.com/

Science Moab talks to Dr. Tommy Rock about uranium exposure on the Navajo Nation

The Colorado Plateau has a long history of uranium mining, particularly within the Navajo Nation. Hundreds of abandoned uranium mines still contaminate water sources and ecologies within the Nation, creating dangerous levels of exposure within tribal communities.

Science Moab spoke with Dr. Tommy Rock, an environmental scientist who has testified before Congress as a leading expert in uranium contamination on the Navajo Nation, about his work to uncover these exposure pathways while empowering his community.

Science Moab: Can you explain the history of uranium mining within the Navajo Nation?

Rock: The mining actually first started with people looking for vanadium. [A chemical element primarily used as an additive to steel. -ed.] People flocked to the Four Corners area looking for it. Uranium mining started around 1918, but really started booming in the 1950s and ‘60s when the atomic bomb happened and the Cold War began.

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Court orders Ontario government to pay family of late Sudbury mine worker $2M in damages (CBC News Sudbury – January 12, 2021)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/

A court has ordered the Ontario government to pay a Sudbury family over $2 million in damages, finding the province liable in the death of a mine worker in 2006.

Raymond Campeau, 47, died in May of that year working as a mechanic during the sinking of the shaft at Podolsky Mine.

His widow, Faye Campeau, has pushed for accountability from the provincial government ever since. She filed this lawsuit in 2018, claiming that the Ministry of Labour was liable in her husband’s death.

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Pike River: The 29 coal miners who never came home – by Phil Mercer (BBC/Yahoo News – November 19, 2020)

https://news.yahoo.com/

The Pike River mining disaster was a tragedy that shocked the world. Twenty-nine men who were in the New Zealand coal mine died when it collapsed in a series of explosions. The BBC’s Phil Mercer covered the accident 10 years ago and has been talking to families of victims still coming to terms with their loss.

The day after his 17th birthday, Joseph Ray Dunbar began his first shift underground at the Pike River coal mine in New Zealand.

He was a “strong-minded boy” who wanted to carve his own path in life, but on that day in November 2010 he became the youngest victim of a mining disaster that killed 29 men.

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DRC illegal mining the dangerous first link in gold supply chain  – by Bienvenu-Marie Bakumanya and Samir Tounsi (Yahoo Finance/AFP – September 14, 2020)

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/

Illegal small-scale gold miners in DR Congo, such as those who were killed when their makeshift mine collapsed last week, are the often-exploited first link in a supply chain that extends to Dubai, according to experts.

The bodies of 22 artisanal miners have been recovered as of Monday, a resident at the scene told AFP, after torrential rain flooded their mine in the eastern town of Kamituga three days before.

The mining town’s mayor has said 20 local families have reported missing loved ones. Rescue efforts continued on Monday to find any survivors of the mining disaster, which are all to common in the vast central African country’s volatile east.

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NEWS RELEASE: Steelworkers Union Welcomes WSIB Decision Recognizing McIntyre Powder-Related Parkinson’s as Occupational Disease (June 24, 2020)

https://www.usw.ca/

TORONTO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–United Steelworkers (USW) Ontario Director Marty Warren welcomes the announcement that Ontario’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) has finally recognized that Parkinson’s Disease is a direct result of exposure to McIntyre Powder.

McIntyre Powder was an aluminum-based inhalant used between 1943 and 1979 in mines and other industries where workers might be exposed to silica dust. The theory, eventually proved false, was that inhaling the powder would protect workers’ lungs.

“This a victory we have been fighting to win for many years,” Warren said of the WSIB decision.

“This means workers’ claims for compensation may finally be met. We consider this a significant step forward toward justice for elderly and sick retirees and their families, although for some families this news comes too late as many who should have been compensated while they were alive have passed away. In the case of those victims’ families, the Estate can file claims on behalf of their loved one.”

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Australian state launches enquiry into Anglo coal mine blast (Reuters U.S. – May 11, 2020)

https://www.reuters.com/

MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Australia’s Queensland on Monday ordered an independent enquiry into an explosion at a coal mine run by Anglo American in the state that last week critically injured five workers.

The accident took place 15 months after another Anglo American worker was killed at a nearby mining complex and comes just months after a review called for tighter regulation of the sector that has seen at least 48 deaths since 2000.

The probe will be led by a retired judge or Queens Counsel who will be able to conduct hearings, call witnesses and make broad inquiries relating to the blast, state mines minister Anthony Lynham said.

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Black Lung and COVID-19 in Appalachia: A Lethal Mix – by Staff (Nature World News – April 6, 2020)

https://www.natureworldnews.com/

Black lung is prevalent in Appalachia. Vulnerable coal miners are wary that the rapid spread and the devastating effects of the COVID-19 can easily wipe their community out.

Jimmy Moore, a 74-year old black lung patient in Shelby Gap, Kentucky, does not know when the coronavirus gets to their area. However, if it does, ” It’s probably just going to wipe us out.” he said. Moore worked in the mines for 22 years and retired in 2000. His 51-year-old son also has a more severe case of black lung.

Two workers in Pennsylvania were tested positive for the coronavirus. The population has an increased risk of getting COVID-19 due to those already inflicted with a black lung.

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Black-Lung Coal Miners Facing Serious Threat from Virus Spread – by Will Wade (Bloomberg News – March 12, 2020)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — The biggest labor union for U.S. coal miners is warning that members are at “significant risk” from the rapidly spreading coronavirus.

Mines are enclosed spaces where the highly contagious virus can easily spread, according to Phil Smith, a spokesman for the United Mine Workers of America. The trade group is developing guidelines that it plans to issue to members soon, he said by email Thursday.

Miners also face greater health risks. As many as 20% of long-time miners may have black lung in central Appalachia, a historic bastion of U.S. coal production that includes parts of West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee.

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BOOK REVIEW: Linden MacIntyre’s The Wake is a long overdue obituary for the miners of the Burin Peninsula – by Ken McGoogan (Globe and Mail – October 19, 2019)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

On Feb. 15, 1965, a retired miner named Rennie Slaney sat down at his kitchen table in St. Lawrence, Nfld., and typed out a five-page, single-spaced document that, as Linden MacIntyre writes in The Wake, would reverberate “across the land.” The 58-year-old Slaney, who could no longer work because of severe health problems, laid out what had happened in recent decades to the people of his small community on the Burin Peninsula.

Addressing his testimonial to a special committee appointed by the government of Premier Joey Smallwood, Slaney mentioned a miner who died in hospital that very day, while another lay nearby, “just awaiting his time.”

Slaney himself, having worked in the mines for 23 years, was suffering from chronic bronchitis, obstructive emphysema, infective asthma and “a usually terminal heart disease caused by lung failure.” The man could step forward because, MacIntyre tells us, he had nothing left to lose: “His lungs were shot.”

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Dam Collapse at Siberian Gold Mine Leaves at Least 15 Dead – by Yuliya Fedorinova (Bloomberg News – October 19, 2019)

https://finance.yahoo.com/

(Bloomberg) — At least 15 people died when a dam collapsed at a gold mine in Russia’s Krasnoyarsk region, the Ministry of Emergency Situations said on its website.

The incident happened at about 2 a.m. Moscow time Saturday near one of the small local gold mining companies’ operations, the ministry said.

Emergency services continue rescue efforts and seven of the 13 people reported missing earlier have been found alive, the Tass news wire reported, citing a local official.

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Fatal mine accident avoidable, Sudbury inquest hears – by Harold Carmichael (Sudbury Star – October 4, 2019)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Development work was carried out on the 6,500-foot level of First Nickel Inc.’s Lockerby Mine in early 2013, wrapping up in March of that year.

That work included blasting out a drift – the 65-2-1-West area – that did not proceed as planned. The entranceway was off-line, so corrective blasting was done to try and straighten it out, and wire mesh, split sets (long metal tubes that help to reinforce a ceiling) and shotcrete (sprayed-on cement) were used to strengthen the ceiling and walls in preparation for production drilling and blasting.

The wider-than-expected entrance created a structural integrity issue, as the arch that was in place to help distribute the stress from the backfilled-area one level above was not large and strong enough.

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Sudbury inquest told: ‘I heard a big bump. It sounded like something had happened’ – by Harold Carmichael (Sudbury Star – October 1, 2019)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Normand Bisaillon had just started working on his dream home when he and his partner were killed in an accident five years ago at the now-shuttered Lockerby Mine, his widow told an inquest as it opened in Sudbury on Monday.

“This is a last chance to get it right,” Romeena Bisaillon told the five-member coroner’s jury at the end of her short address. “Please: let’s not waste it.” The inquest is looking at how Normand Bisaillon, 49, and Marc Methe, 34, were killed on May 6, 2014, and recommendations on how to prevent such tragedies in the future.

Greg Allaire, representing the Methe family, said Marc was an intelligent man who aimed for bigger things in his life and took on the drilling job with Taurus Drilling as a stepping-stone in his career.

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