MINE RESCUE & SAFETY
The tools used to combat mine fires can unfortunately cause collateral damage, FireRein says( photo credit: Dan Mathieu)
Safety scrutiny
When an incident occurs, real-time tracking of personnel, and the use of safety aids, are paramount, Dan Gleeson says
Just last month, the health and safety camera lens was pointed straight at the mining industry as mainstream media covered the rescue of three miners trapped underground at Newmont’ s Red Chris mine in British Columbia, Canada.
On the morning of July 22, two fall of ground incidents occurred in the access way to the underground work area of what Newmont says is a“ non-producing project” at Red Chris.
The incident came on the heels of the ICMM’ s 2024 safety performance report, which showed that 42 people from ICMM company members lost their lives at work in 2024, up from 36 in 2023 and 33 in 2022. In 2024, nine of these fatalities were related to mobile equipment and transportation, and five fatalities were caused by fall of ground related incidents. Shortly after both of these, there was a tragic accident at Codelco’ s El Teniente underground mine in northern Chile.
At the time of the initial incident in British Columbia, three employees were working more than 500 m beyond the affected zone and were asked to relocate to a designated refuge station before a subsequent fall of ground blocked the access way.
The refuge stations were equipped with adequate food, water and ventilation to support an extended stay, Newmont said, with the gold miner and its partners deploying specialised drones to assess the geotechnical conditions underground. This included Flyability Elios 3 drones, equipped with LiDAR payloads for SLAM-based mapping, plus an Emesent Hovermap drone, the latter of which flew beyond the fall of ground to prove ground conditions were suitable for a rescue.
Newmont also used a Cat ® R1700 LHD – operated via line of sight remote control – from its Brucejack site, some 140 km away, to clear the fallen debris from the access tunnel, plus a Sandvik Toro ® LH621i fitted with an engineered Falling Object Protective System to advance across the impact zone and return the trapped personnel to surface.
Enhancing underground safety
This incident highlighted the many aspects of mine rescue and safety protocols that are common in the industry, including the necessity to have well-resourced refuge chambers that are placed strategically around the mine.
The workers at Red Chris sheltered in a MineARC Systems MineSAFE Standard Design Refuge Chamber, designed to provide personnel with optimum safety features, functionality and performance, all while complying with internationally recognised refuge chamber guidelines. With a capacity for 16 people, these chambers have several vital life-support systems to create a safe, ongoing environment for occupants, MineARC says. Systems include primary and secondary air( oxygen) supplies, air conditioning systems, positive pressure systems, electrical systems, gas detection and a chemical scrubbing system.
On a different continent, Rio Tinto recently employed a team at MineARC to bolster the underground safety protocols and improve emergency response capabilities within the vast network of tunnels and refuge chambers at the Oyu Tolgoi mine in Mongolia.
Oyu Tolgoi’ s underground operations presented complex safety challenges, necessitating a robust system that could achieve rapid and accurate worker accountability in emergencies, MineARC says. Key challenges included:
• Monitoring worker safety in refuge chambers: Oyu Tolgoi required a realtime monitoring system to account for individuals within underground refuge chambers. This involved ensuring rapid response capabilities and monitoring both personnel and environmental conditions inside the chambers;
MineARC equipped Oyu Tolgoi’ s refuge chambers with Node Gas Monitors to continuously assess external atmospheric conditions, providing critical data on gas levels and temperatures essential for emergency rescues and egress planning
18 International Mining | SEPTEMBER 2025