Evaluation of Occupational Fatalities among Underground Coal Mine Workers through Hierarchical Loglinear Models

Abstract

Despite the all precautions, underground coal mining is one of the dangerous industries owing to fatal occupational accidents. Accidents are complicated events to which many factors effect on their formation and preventing them is only possible by the analyses of the accident occurred in past and by straight evaluation of the obtained results. In this study, hierarchical loglinear analysis method was implemented to occupational fatalities occurred in the period of 1980-2004 in the five underground coal mines of Turkish Hardcoal Enterprises which has the most important coal production areas in Turkey. The accident records were evaluated and the main factors affecting the accidents were defined as mine, miners' age, occupation, and accident type. By taking into account the sub factors of the main factors, multi way contingency tables were prepared and thus, the probabilities might effect fatality accidents were investigated. At the end of this study, it was found that the mostly affected job group by the fatality accidents was the production workers and additionally, these workers were mostly exposed to roof collapses and methane explosions. Moreover, important accident risk factors and the occupational job groups which have high probability to be exposed to these risk factors were determined and important information about decreasing the accidents in the underground coal mines were presented.

Associations of Individual-Related and Job-Related Risk Factors with Nonfatal Occupational Injury in the Coal Workers of Shanxi Province: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…The results showed that 37%-88% of the total mine fatalities were attributable to equipment each year, and non-powered hand tools was the most frequently involved equipment category with nonfatal injuries while off-road ore haulage was the most common source of fatalities. Moreover, despite many ongoing safety initiatives around the world, working in an underground coal mine is rarely as safe as working in an office [ 30 , 31 ].…”

Mass Casualty Incidents in the Underground Mining Industry: Applying the Haddon Matrix on an Integrative Literature Review

“…Many of these incidents occurred in coal mines, again exemplifying a C1 factor of rock characteristics (Figure 1). Explosions in these mines remain a frequent cause of fatalities, having killed hundreds of miners in both Europe 16 - 18 and the United States 19 over the last 30 years. Methane gas explosion triggered the mass-burn incident in the Cardowan coal mine in Scotland 1982.…”

Analyses of non-fatal accidents in an opencast mine by logistic regression model – a case study

“…They also found that the younger miners, the iteration of occupation and personal factors depended on the hazards. Onder and Adiguzel (2010) analysed the fatal occupational accidents occurred in the period of 1980À2004 in the five underground coal mines of Turkish Hardcoal Enterprises (TTK) by using hierarchical loglinear models. They categorized the accidents in terms of mine, miners' age, occupation and accident type.…”