Insight
Early warning can save lives
Mining disasters can be averted with new lifesaving technology, writes Yoni Margalit.
Mine safety is of grave concern in South Africa. After the recent fatal incident at Palabora Mining Company in Limpopo, Mining Minister Gwede Mantashe called on mining operations to dramatically improve the safety conditions for miners. At the current rate, South Africa is heading towards the deadliest year in mining since 2012. However, technologies like early warning devices are now available in South Africa, which might prevent some of the incidents from happening. These devices notify miners of danger in the working face, and the technology includes radios that can be used in places where communication is not possible.
A significant number of miners have died because it takes too long to warn people underground— if they can be reached at all— making quick action almost impossible. The existing unreliable‘ mining telephone’ and leaky feeder systems in use only reach developed areas within the mine and are often compromised in underground catastrophes like fires and rock falls.
Advanced Communications has sourced radios that use the mine’ s existing metallic and conductive infrastructure to create reliable communication paths underground that extend for kilometres. This allows the mine to have a backup radio system that works whether mine power is on or off, post-incident and even through obstructions.
Furthermore, the company locally develops and manufactures the WARN( wireless alert remote notification) devices in South Africa, which ensure that each miner is able to receive warnings immediately underground, no matter where they are and whether existing communications are functioning or not. These are wearable pager-like devices that alert each miner to a problem by vibrating, flashing, and beeping using medium frequency, allowing them to evacuate without delay.
The communication radios are already in use by Mines Rescue Services( MRS), a global non-profit organisation in South Africa that provides resources and expertise for effective emergency services, to ensure improved communication between members of its team during rescue operations. MRS has tested the radios extensively in underground situations and found that they provided continuous communication signal strength of 5 / 5 over underground distances of more than three kilometres.
MRS was also heavily involved in testing the WARN device, which also showed great success in receiving the warning signal even in undeveloped areas of a mine where no visible metallic infrastructure could be seen.
Technology like this could have been used at Palabora Mining Company where six miners unfortunately lost their lives. The tragedy occurred when a fire started on a conveyor belt underground. Once the smoke could be seen by logistics workers, they began warning people to get to the nearest refuge bay, but unfortunately when a catastrophe like this occurs, the first thing to go down is communication. These miners could have been saved by carrying a warning pager that would receive a warning signal regardless whether the mine’ s communication infrastructure was functioning or not. b
Yoni Margalit is the managing director of Advanced Communications.
[ 40 ] MINING MIRROR OCTOBER 2018