Quetta mine tragedy - a warning for Pakistan

Barely a week after the recovery of the final bodies from the Sorange coal mine near Quetta, Pakistan's latest mining disaster is already fading from the headlines. Yet the deaths of 34 miners should not simply become another statistic. As with previous mining disasters, expressions of grief, promises of investigations and compensation for bereaved families have followed. The real test, however, is whether this tragedy finally prompts the reforms needed to improve mining conditions in the country.

The HRCP's 2022 fact-finding report, 'Beneath the Surface: Rights Violations in Balochistan's Coal Mines', documented hazardous working conditions, weak labour protections and the limited livelihood options facing coal miners in the province. It pointed out how shortages of trained mine inspectors, infrequent inspections and weak enforcement of safety regulations have allowed these dangerous conditions to persist.

The HRCP's recommendations were neither radical nor prohibitively expensive. They included strengthening the Mines Inspectorate capacity and effectiveness, ensuring adequate ventilation and continuous methane monitoring, improving emergency response capacity, extending social security protections to miners, and ratifying the ILO's Convention on safety and health in mines. Till today, most of these recommendations remain only partially implemented.

The Quetta tragedy, therefore, reflects a broader governance failure. Nonetheless, the government has increasingly identified critical minerals, including rare earth elements, as strategic resources capable of attracting foreign investment and strengthening industrial development. Our decision-makers view these resources as an opportunity to position Pakistan within rapidly evolving global supply chains amid the energy transition and intensifying geopolitical competition. But the real challenge lies not in extracting more minerals, but in ensuring that their extraction is governed effectively, transparently and sustainably.

History offers numerous examples of resource-rich countries which have struggled to convert mineral wealth into broad-based development because institutions failed to keep pace with extraction. Congo's cobalt sector serves as a cautionary tale, demonstrating how weak governance can contribute to child labour, water and soil contamination, hazardous working conditions, and limited local benefits despite vast mineral wealth.

Attracting foreign investment in mining will increasingly depend not only on geological potential but also on credible institutions, predictable regulation, environmental and social safeguards, and safe working conditions, all of which reduce investment risk and help secure a project's social licence to operate. Expanding mineral extraction without first strengthening governance could thus be a costly mistake.

Although rare earth extraction involves different mining and processing techniques than underground coal mining, both industries depend on strong occupational safety systems, effective environmental regulation, transparent licensing, competent regulatory institutions and meaningful accountability. Rare earth mining can also generate significant environmental and public health risks through chemical processing, toxic waste disposal, groundwater contamination and ecosystem degradation if not carefully regulated. Countries such as Australia and Canada have demonstrated that internationally competitive mining sectors are built not only on geological potential but also on strong regulatory institutions, rigorous environmental oversight and high labour standards.

Pakistan must take a hard look at the shortcomings of its mining sector before embarking on an expansion of its extractive industries. Safety and environmental protections should not be viewed as obstacles to investment but instead as essential foundations for sustainable resource development and ensuring that mineral wealth contributes to sustainable development rather than recurring casualties, rampant labour exploitation and avoidable ecological destruction.