Serious safety concerns

At around midday yesterday, a 27 year old man was crushed to death between two vehicles at an open-cut coal mine in Central Queensland.

The man was working with a colleague in the fuel bay area at the Saraji coal mine, near Dysart, which is operated by BHP Mitsubishi Alliance(BMA).

Apart from anything else, this tragic incident is just so incredibly sad and my heart goes out to the man’s family, friends and work colleagues for their unimaginable loss, as well as the first responders who attended at the scene.

According to the Mining and Energy Union (MEU), the whole Qld mining community are shocked and saddened by the incident.

Operations at the mine have been suspended, pending an investigation by the Resources Safety and Health Queensland (RSHQ) and Union safety inspectors.

Without wishing to pre-empt this investigation, it is worth noting that this latest event follows the tragic death of 49 year old bulldozer operator, Allan Houston, at Dysart’s Saraji Mine on 31 December 2018.

Also worth noting is the recent suspension of operations at the Saraji Mine by RSHQ due to a number of serious safety concerns.

These concerns prompted acting regional mine inspector, Paul Brown, to issue multiple directives to the mine’s site senior executive (SSE) in October 2023.

The directives listed a number of major safety issues at the mine that SSE were instructed to address. The regulator also raised concerns over tractors working across slopes “near a body of water which had insufficient controls in place to manage the risk”.

“To be clear this is a fatal hazard” the MRE said.

The regulator also called out the “competencies of supervisors” at the mine, saying the SSE needed to develop an action plan to address “root cause or contributing factors involving less than adequate supervision”.

The directives carried a deadline of 31 October 2023.

There have now been 11 miners killed at work in Queensland Mines and Quarries since 2018.

This pattern of ongoing deaths and serious injuries is completely unacceptable.

Clearly there are still significant problems around mine safety and something substantive must be done this time to get to the bottom of it all.

For now, however, the community’s focus should be on comforting and supporting the family, the responders, the workmates, the friends, the supervisors and managers, all of whom are victims of this tragic event.

My thoughts and prayers are with them all.