Death mines

Not just the first such incident, and will not be the last unless stringent labour protection measures are put to practice. Another coalmine incident, in Harnai district of Balochistan, claimed the lives of a dozen workers on Wednesday.

Hundreds of miners die from mining accidents in Pakistan every year, mainly due to a deposit of coal dust and methane and hydrogen sulphide gases. Most of the deaths occur in developing countries like ours where there are scant safety measures for labour. The accidents happening frequently, particularly in Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, warrant serious and immediate attention and action. The Pakistan Mines Labour Federation has rightly raised concern over the working conditions of more than 70,000 coalmine workers, pointing out that safety standards are commonly ignored in the coalmining industry in Pakistan — something that leads to accidents resulting in a significant number of fatalities every year.

It is not just the general safety and protection of the workers that is a serious threat, but also a lack of training and effective supervision for the workers to respond to hazards which puts their life at risk. Moreover, the workers are also ill-equipped with personal protection gears as a preparatory measure for emergencies. The dim light attached to their helmets makes it the sight hard for them in deep darkness. To add to that, there are no or broken warning systems to trigger an alert of gas leaks or flooding.

A failure to meet the universal standards of labour protection makes work sites in Pakistan life-threatening. It is imperative for the authorities to take diligent action and implement ILO Convention 176 on Safety and Health in Mines (C176) to at least ensure safety of the lives of coalminers, if not other rights and entitlements.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 22^nd, 2024.

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