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January 12, 2024 - The mining industry had its deadliest year in a decade in 2023, as 40 miners died in accidents across the U.S. The 40 fatalities were the most in a single year industrywide since 2014. Forty-six miners died in accidents that year.
The Mine Safety & Health Administration (MSHA) provides details about the 40 fatalities in reports on its website, attributing the accidents to nine general causes. MSHA characterized 16 of last year’s fatalities as involving machinery, with 10 classified as powered haulage accidents. Combined, machinery and powered haulage accounted for 65 percent of mine fatalities in 2023.
The other fatalities were classified in seven different ways. Three 2023 fatalities were classified as electrical accidents, with another three categorized as slip or fall of person. The other fatal accident causes were drowning (2); fall of roof or back (2); falling, rolling or sliding rock or material of any kind (2); fall of face, rib side or highwall (1); and handling material (1).
Additionally, MSHA published details about the nature of the material mined at each site where fatal accidents occurred. Thirty-one of the 40 fatalities occurred at sites fitting MSHA’s description of a metal/nonmetal mining operation. The other nine fatal accidents happened at coal mines.
Of the 31 metal/nonmetal operations involved, seven occurred at “crushed broken limestone” operations and six happened at construction sand and gravel operations. The nature of the material at the other sites involved was kaolin and ball clay (3); “crushed broken sandstone” (2); “crushed broken stone” (2); dimension stone (2); gold ore (2); cement (1); “crushed broken traprock” (1); dimension limestone (1); lime (1); platinum group ore (1); “sand common” (1); and silver ore (1).
The state with the most fatal accidents in 2023 was Texas, which had five. Georgia had four and West Virginia had three. Eight states had two fatal accidents last year, including California, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Tennessee.
A further breakdown of last year’s 40 mining fatalities found that January and August were the deadliest months, with six fatal accidents in each. Five miners died in mining accidents in March, and four died in June. Every month last year had at least one mining fatality.
The first fatality of 2024 occurred in Texas on Jan. 2, with MSHA classifying the accident as a powered haulage incident.
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