EDITORIAL - How safe was it?

One miner was killed while another was injured after a huge rock fell on them while they were mining for coal last Friday in Purok Santol, Barangay Uling, in the City of Naga.

According to a report in BANAT News, the sister publication of this newspaper, the two miners were down a 100-meter mine shaft when a rock fell on them. Robert Abalorio, 27, died of his injuries while his co-worker Fernando Juntilla, 50, was injured.

Abalorio was reportedly wearing a hardhat at the time, but still this wasn’t able to provide the protection that could have saved his life.

First up, the mine was a legal one and had the necessary papers and permits. Let’s get that out of the way immediately; there was no issue raised against it there.

But while the mining operation was indeed legal, just how safe was it?

The same BANAT report says that to get to the bottom of the mineshaft, the miners had to ride down in an improvised elevator fashioned from a metal drum. Not exactly the safest thing to ride down into a mine shaft. The report also mentioned that they used a jackhammer to dig out the coal. We aren’t sure if this is industry standard, but a jackhammer is known to cause strong vibrations, strong vibrations that might just be enough to dislodge huge person-killing rocks.

Was the hard hat that Abalorio was using up to industry standard? Not all types or hard hats are equal after all; some are of really tough quality while others are mass produced just for compliance with regulations. Also, was the jackhammer operator briefed on what could happen down in the tunnel and what to do when these happened?

If accidents aren’t acts of God, they happen in a workplace because someone was being careless, not following standard procedures, using the wrong equipment, or there were not enough safety regulations in place.