Profile of groundfall incidents in underground coal mines
Mining Engineering
, 2003, Vol. 55, No. 9, pp. 20-26
Pappas, D.M.; Mark, C.
ABSTRACT:
Historically, underground coal mining has been recognized as one of the most hazardous occupations in the United States. Since 1910, more than 85,000 underground miners have lost their lives mining coal. Nearly half of these fatalities were due to falls of roof and rib. As shown in Fig. 1, more than 1,000 roof- and rib-fall fatalities occurred annually until the early 1930s. During the late-1940s through the 1950s, mechanization of production greatly reduced the size of the workforce. Although the total number of groundfall fatalities was also reduced, the actual rate of roof and rib fatalities did not significantly drop until after the early 1960s. Since the mid-1980s, the groundfall-fatality-incidence rate has essentially stagnated.
