Purpose. Investigating conditions of conducting and maintaining excavation works during mining of seam l с 8 . Evaluating probability of parting rocks stability loss in terms of top-down mining of two contiguous seams in a series. Practical implications. The paper describes the possibility of the significant interrelation of contiguous seams during their simultaneous top-down stoping even if they are not related to the category of "adjacent seams". Therefore, in severe mining and geological conditions, it is recommended to estimate the probability of rocks softening along all the height of the parting.