Türkiye’deki Kömür Madeni Kazalarına İlişkin Değerlendirme

Abstract

Mining accidents, considered as technological disasters, are global problems as well as usually common issues faced by developing countries. These accidents cause considerable number of deaths, injuries and economic losses worldwide. The statistics show that mining accidents occurred mostly in the coal mines in Turkey and also in the world. This is the fact that, in the period of 2010-2015 in Turkey, coal mining accidents caused approximately 81% of human casualties in the mining accidents. Firedamp explosion, fire, carbon monoxide poisoning, inundation and collapsing of mine stopes are the most common causes of coal mining accidents in Turkey. Only in 2014, 301 miners died because of mine fire in the Soma-Eynez underground coal mine and 18 miners also died because of inundation in the Karaman-Ermenek underground coal mine. In order to prevent/ mitigate deaths, injuries and economic losses caused by mining accidents, the primarily step is risk reduction studies because mining accidents are based on generally preventable issues like infrastructure, technology and management problems. A successful risk reduction plan for mining accidents requires analyzing and commenting the factors causing mining accidents in the best way. This risk approach will allow us to eliminate many mining accidents or overcome them with the least damage. Some risk reduction studies have conducted for prevention of mining accidents or reduction of the losses. Actually, there were serious gaps in the laws about occupational health and safety of workers in mining sector until 2012. The significant amendments were made to the regulations with the Act No. 6331 that came into force in 2012. Some amendments were also made to relevant regulations in 2014. However, the painful experiences show that the implementing and monitoring of existing regulations and amendments are insufficient. In that regard, taking and monitoring essential measures against work accidents caused by the human factor must be the primary task for mining activities. In this study, risk reduction studies are discussed with evaluating of the coal mining accidents which occurred in Turkey.