Injury Trends in Mining
Since the earliest days of mining, the job of digging coal and other useful materials out of the earth has been considered one of the world's most dangerous occupations. Public concern about the toll of deaths, injuries and destruction in mine accidents has prompted passage of much-needed safety legislation and intensified the search for safer methods and improved training practices and technology. Growing cooperation among industry, labor and government also has contributed to making mining safer and more healthful, especially in recent years.
As a result of these initiatives, mining deaths and injuries have significantly declined in this century, although even the current relatively low injury numbers and frequency rates are still unacceptable to safety professionals in the American mining community and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA).
The Tragic Early Toll
From 1880 to 1910, mine explosions and other accidents claimed thousands of victims. The deadliest year in U.S. coal mining history was 1907, when 3,242 deaths occurred. That year, America's worst mine explosion ever killed 358 people near Monongah, WV. While metal and nonmetal (non-coal) mining was less deadly than coal mining, available records for the era show that it, too, was highly hazardous. Fires, explosions and cave-ins caused many deaths and injuries. One of the deadliest non-coal mining accidents involved a mine fire in Montana that killed 163 men in 1917.
With each passing decade, the annual number of mining deaths and the even more significant rates of injuries (measuring numbers of injuries against hours worked) have declined.
Decades of Difficult but Impressive Progress
Total deaths in all types of U.S. mining, which had averaged 1,500 or more during earlier decades, decreased on average during the 1990's, to under 100 and reached a record low of 55 in 2004. There were 65 mining fatalities in 2007. The average annual injuries to miners have also decreased steadily.
Where annual coal mining deaths had numbered more than 1,000 a year in the early part of the 20th century, they decreased to an average of about 451 annual fatalities in the 1950s, and to 141 in the 1970s. The yearly average in coal mining decreased to 30 fatalities from 2001-2005.
Less dramatic yet still impressive have been the safety gains in metal and nonmetal mining. There was an average of 233 deaths yearly in the 1930s, compared to 32 fatalities from 2001-2005.
MSHA Fact Sheets - Injury Trends in Mining
