Five workers were seriously injured in an underground explosion at a Queensland coal mine yesterday afternoon.
Around 3pm yesterday, a blast occurred at Anglo American’s Grosvenor coal mine, at Moranbah, south of Mackay.
The five seriously injured workers, aged in their forties and fifties, suffered extensive burns to their upper bodies as well as burns to their airways.
All of the men were transported by air to Brisbane. According to Queensland Ambulance Service operations manager Doug Buchanan, four of the workers were listed as critical, with the remaining worker listed as serious but stable.
“Four of the gentlemen required intubation and ventilation,” Mr Buchanan said.
Both government mine inspectors and union safety inspectors were at the mine investigating the incident today. All work at the site is on hold as the investigation is completed.
Jason Hill, a health and safety representative for the CFMEU acknowledged that there had been several safety issued reported to the union prior to the incident.
“This mine’s had a problem with gas for a long time which they were struggling to get their handle on,” he said.
All of the workers at the site are employed under a labour hire scheme, which Mr Hill explained creates a culture of not speaking up if there are safety issues.
“A lot of complaints we get are that if they speak up, they won’t be there tomorrow … that’s a real safety concern with us,” he said.
Chief Inspector of Coal Mines Queensland, Peter Newman, confirmed to ABC Radio Brisbane that his department had been in contact with the mine in the past month, and confirmed that there were safety concerns prior to the incident.
“As in all inspections undertaken at mine sites, whenever you bring a fresh pair of eyes to an operation there are always either recommendations for improvements in certain aspects of the mine or a directive in terms of the mine taking a particular action.”
Mr Newman did not say whether the prior safety concerns were a factor in yesterday’s incident.
Inspectors “are monitoring the gas environment underground,” he said.
“Until such time that the monitoring and analysis of gas readings determines that there is a safe environment for people to return underground, it’s premature for me to speculate what the nature and cause of this incident was,” he said.