Daily Times

Mines and mineral deposits of Pakistan have been in the news for the last few days for all bad reasons. Earlier, it was the Reko Diq case in the international tribunal, which caused a $5.8 billion fine on Pakistan. Back home, the whole nation is sad at the death of miners, who had been trapped in a coal mine for two days. Our failure to recover them safe resulted in the death of nine of them. A worker succumbed to his injuries in Civil Hospital Quetta on Tuesday. He was rescued with life-threatening injuries from the coalmines of Quetta district’s Degari area after more than 40 hours being remained trapped thousands of feet deep. The sad saga began after 11 miners got trapped in the mine when toxic gases accumulated in the pit on Sunday. After the wastage of precious hours, the Provincial Disaster Management Authority sprang into action, that too on the intervention of the Balochistan chief minister.

Mining is prone to accidents and such eventualities happen all over the world. The difference between us and most of the parts of the world is that we are still ill-equipped to rescue the trapped workers. For these reasons, Balochistan representatives of labour unions have often voiced their disappointment at the government’s efforts to ensure the implementation of guidelines for the workers’ safety. Not only the government, the mine owners – as mines are privately owned or privately operated under a lease agreement – also take no pains about the safety of the hapless miners. In the case of the Degari mines, the administration remained clueless about the trapped miners during the first 24 hours. After the miraculous recovery of two workers, the whole nation went into the prayer mode and prayed for the safe recovery of the remaining workers. But the hopeless operation has now retrieved the workers dead.

The tragedy of the Degari coal mines must be turned into an opportunity. The media, civil society, labour unions and most importantly the government must pay attention to the poor working conditions inside coal mines. Some labour unions say the mines-related incidents claim the lives of miners on an almost daily basis in Harnai, Sowrange, Dukki and other parts of the province, but these tragedies remain unreported and unnoticed. Such incidents happen mainly due to the composition of the coal mines, including flat-lying rock strata, leakage or explosion of poisonous gases and coal dust, collapsing of mine stopes or general mechanical errors from improper use and malfunctioning of mining equipment. The Balochistan government must collaborate with the international organisations working on safe mining. Mines should not become death traps for poor miners. *