New international standard can help to reduce mining accidents

Nov 12, 2017 Features / Columnists, Standards in Focus

Over the last few years, there have been numerous reports of mining accidents which have occurred in the interior of Guyana. Indeed mining for gold and other valuable minerals in mining pits and makeshift structures could be considered a very risky and hazardous form of work.
The causes can be numerous, from explosive dust and toxic gases to collapse of mine shafts and pit walls, and the consequences severe, with many fatalities.
When an incident does occur at a mining location, it can be hard to understand precisely what’s happened. Because many factors are at play, a wide range of accidents can occur. According to Barnaby Lewis of the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), a key step in preventing these accidents is to classify them by type and by cause, and that’s where ISO/ 19434 comes in.
Developed by the ISO technical committee on mining (ISO/TC/ 82), the ISO 19434 – Classification of mine accidents standard represents a new direction for work in the mining sector as previous mining standards developed by ISO mostly looked at safety features for machinery. ISO 19434 looks at the accidents themselves, giving each accident a code that indicates its causes and consequences.
With the entire industry worldwide working to further improve the safety of their operations, there are clear advantages of a unified system to understand the main types of accidents. Using the classification given in ISO/ 19434, our local industry here in Guyana can identify whether accidents have occurred due to human error or other causes.
This new mining standard gives a shared understanding on key issues, as it defines not only the main types of accidents/ but, importantly, provides information about the nature of any injuries that have occurred, defining their location and to what degree personnel are affected.
With the publication of ISO/ 19434, a long-standing need has been addressed for a comprehensive mine accidents classification system that could present a standard scheme for all factors associated with the accidents. This will enable full analysis based on both software systems and manual assessment.
By presenting a common understandable language for communication between all parts involved in safety, health and environment issues in mines, the hope is that working conditions can continue to improve across all operations in the mining sector./ Local miners can take advantage of the benefits this international standard has to offer.
For further information on this subject, contact the GNBS on telephone numbers: 219-0065 or 219-0064 or visit: iso.org

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