THE US Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ordered the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) to reconsider rescue team rules covering small coal mines.
Current rules allow teams at mines with fewer than 36 employees to train just once a year. The judge says the rule violates a federal law.
Similarly, Australia’s Department of Mines and Energy (DME) conducts a major exercise at different underground coal mines each year to help ensure Queensland maintains its high standard of mining health and safety. Other states follow similar practices.
The Australian rule follows the coal mine explosion at the Moura No. 2 Underground Mine in Queensland on 7 August 1994. It was recommended by the subsequent Wardens Inquiry that “Emergency procedures should be exercised at each mine on a systematic basis, the minimum requirement being on an annual basis for each mine”.
The US court has ordered the federal agency to lift its game in order to make the nation’s 38,000 underground coal miners are safer, perhaps the Australian Government will follow suit.
The court also ordered the MSHA to eliminate a rule allowing teams of state mine inspectors to substitute work for rescue practice.
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