Attempts to rescue 10 men from a flooded mine in Mexico have been delayed after the water levels in three shafts rose suddenly on Sunday. The miners became trapped on 3 August when a wall in a tunnel collapsed and water from an adjacent chamber gushed into the three shafts.
Officials say the water has to drop to a depth of 1.5m (5ft) to allow rescuers to enter the shafts safely. But on Sunday, it suddenly rose again to more than 20m.
https://www.thesudburystar.com/
Four miners died following a massive rockburst struck Falconbridge Mine
The massive rockburst that struck Falconbridge Mine at about 10:12 a.m. June 20, 1984, that claimed four lives has left Rick Grylls and Tom Rannelli with memories that will never fade.
Grylls, a past president of the Mine Mill Local 598/Unifor union that represents production and maintenance workers at the former Falconbridge Limited (now Glencore’s Sudbury Integrated Nickel Operations), had just put the electrical in the stope at the mine the week before He was embarking on a new job as financial secretary of his union when disaster struck.
https://www.claimsjournal.com/
The U.S. coal industry may be shrinking rapidly as the country shifts to renewable energy, but insurers’ and self-insured companies’ liabilities for black-lung occupational disease claims have ballooned – to an estimated $9 billion and perhaps more than $14 billion.
pastedGraphic.pngThat’s according to a recent report from Milliman, the global actuarial and consulting firm. The study’s authors took a first-ever look at the cost of existing and future claims, payments for which will continue for years to come.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/
The race to reach eight workers trapped in a flooded, Canadian-owned zinc mine in West Africa is making progress. Trevali Mining Corp. says access to its Perkoa Mine in Burkina Faso is improving after more than 32 million litres of water were pumped out of the shaft.
Workers became trapped more than 500 metres below the surface on April 16, after heavy rain caused flash flooding which breached two embankments outside the mine, said Trevali in a statement to CBC News on Tuesday. Sixteen other workers underground at the time were able to escape.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/
26 men died in underground explosion at Pictou County mine
Joe MacKay will never forget the explosion at the Westray mine 30 years ago today. The underground explosion in Plymouth, N.S., killed 26 miners. One of them was MacKay’s brother, Mike. “He loved his bikes, including a chopper he just thought the world of,” said MacKay. “He loved his family. His kids meant everything to him.”
Mike MacKay was 38. He was the father of two young children. Like the other men who worked at the mine, he had only been working there for nine months after it opened in September 1991.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/
Northern miners were required to breathe in ground aluminum dust from 1943 to 1979
Friends, family and advocates for the 25,000 miners who were forced to inhale McIntyre Powder walked away from the Legislative Assembly on Thursday without the Ontario apology they were expecting.
Northern miners were required to breathe in the ground aluminum dust, known as McIntyre Powder, before they started their shifts from 1943 until 1979.
TORONTO – A decade-long campaign led by the daughter of a deceased uranium miner has led to victory for workers struck by Parkinson’s disease after being subjected to aluminum dust inhalation “treatments” in their jobs.
Supported by her union, the United Steelworkers (USW), and other worker advocacy organizations, Janice Martell waged a relentless campaign to compel Ontario’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) to recognize Parkinson’s as an occupational disease linked to the use of so-called McIntyre Powder in mining and other industries.
The methane built up silently, first in the ceilings of the Russian coal shaft, then expanding downward, possibly undetected, until an errant spark ignited the cloud, setting off an explosion. Dozens of people — both miners and rescuers — were killed.
No, this wasn’t the tragedy that hit the Listvyazhnaya mine in Russia’s famed Kuzbass coal basin last week. This was another disaster that struck 11 years ago at another mine, Raspadskaya, about a three-hour drive to the southeast, also in the Kuzbass.
MOSCOW, Nov 26 (Reuters) – Police in Siberia arrested two safety inspectors suspected of criminal negligence on Friday as Russia’s coal mining heartland mourned the deaths of 51 people in one of its worst mine disasters since Soviet times.
Regional governor Sergei Tsivilyov said a methane explosion was the likely cause of Thursday’s accident at the mine near the town of Belovo. The dead included five rescuers sent to bring out dozens of men stuck deep underground, he said.
https://www.thesudburystar.com/
Canadian Press – Danny Taillefer and Jason Leger were in the middle of a first aid refresher course when the phone rang. Shawn Rideout, the chief rescue officer with Ontario Mine Rescue, was on the other end. There were 39 miners stuck underground at Totten Mine near Sudbury, Ont., after the mine shaft was compromised, he said.
There was another way out: climbing a complex warren of ladders at the Vale-owned mine from about a kilometre underground. Taillefer and Leger — mine rescue officers with the non-profit who were based in Timmins, Ont. — were told they were needed for a complicated mission, and instructed to bring several hundred kilograms of rope and other gear.
https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/
At 60 years old, Perry Venedam was one of the oldest miners stranded underground at Vale’s Totten Mine on Sunday after a piece of equipment being slung to the bottom became lodged in the shaft and put the cage lift system out of operation.
Along with 39 other Vale employees, he was forced to use a secondary egress ladder system to ascend out of the mine with the help of mine rescuers, who ensured they were able to climb safely with the help of fall arrest equipment.
Editor’s note: CIM Magazine interviewed Ontario Mine Rescue’s Ted Hanley just weeks before the Totten mine rescue team successfully rescued the 39 miners trapped 4,130 feet underground.
You can’t crystal-ball everything. Ted Hanley, general manager of Ontario Mine Rescue, does his best anyway, as do the staffers and volunteers who work to save miners’ lives when accidents occur.
After all, the 92-year-old organization was created in response to a problem many should have seen coming. In 1928, fire crews were brought in from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to put out a fire at the Hollinger mine in Timmins because no local or provincial firefighters were capable of responding to the underground blaze.
https://www.thesudburystar.com/
The escape from Totten this week tested the mettle of more than three-dozen miners, but the task confronting rescue workers was just as daunting. About 90 people altogether were involved in the extraction effort, said Ontario Mine Rescue vice-president Ted Hanley, with Shawn Rideout, the organization’s chief mine rescue officer, charged with overseeing the response.
“It was all hands on deck, and really well-oiled in that there was a day shift and a night shift transition, for the surface operations, at least,” said Hanley. “It was a little more difficult for the underground rescue workers.”
https://www.thesudburystar.com/
Imagine scaling 25 fire towers. That’s essentially what underground workers at Totten Mine had to do after their cage was rendered inoperable on Sunday. “That’s a feat,” remarked one official with the United Steelworkers, which represents Vale miners. “It’s a fairly steep incline, usually around 72 degrees, like a ladder standing on the side of your house. So you are using your arms, your legs. It is physically and mentally challenging.”
As of Wednesday morning, all 39 miners who became trapped Sunday afternoon had safely made it to the surface, according to the company. The final four were individuals who needed a bit more help due to health issues or fitness levels, so their exit took longer.
When Robert Cohen learned about black lung disease as a medical student, he assumed it was a relic of the past. “I thought it was something that happened in the times of Émile Zola” — whose 1885 book “Germinal” chronicled the horrors of France’s coal industry. “I didn’t think I’d see it in my practice.”
Almost four decades later, he still treats miners from downstate Illinois, their lungs scarred from breathing coal dust. They trek up to Chicago, sometimes looking out of place in the sleek hospital waiting room on Chicago’s ritzy Gold Coast, where Cohen sees patients.
“The nurses love them, they are so down to earth,” said Cohen, who also founded a black lung clinic at Chicago’s public county hospital, serving miners from around the region, including many who had migrated to Chicago from Appalachia after mines there closed.
