Pakistan Mines Workers Call for Effective Safety Measures After Recent Accident
Pakistan Mines Workers Association stressed the need for adopting effective precautionary measures for coal-miners so that increasing incident of laborers death working in col mines could be avoided. PMWA Balochistan president Noor Zaman Khan and general secretary Haji Noor Mohammad Khan expressed sorrow and grief over the demise of two laborers in recent Much coal mine roof collapse.
“Chief Inspector of Mines should play role for ensuring security and safety to the lives of coalminers working in mines in Balochistan,” they stressed. They urged the Mines Workers Welfare Board to make arrangements for compensating the affected families of laborers who died in Much. It is earlier reported that at least 29 workers were trapped inside two mines on Wednesday 15 in Mach area of Balochistan and 14 in Tarnawai area of Abbottabad Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
However, 14 of them were later rescued. Fourteen workers were trapped inside a mine when heavy rocks blocked its entrance in Batt Kanal village near Tarnawai area, about 30km from Abbottabad. Local officials as saying that at least 11 miners were feared dead. The workers could not be rescued till late in the night. Local people made hectic efforts, but in vain, to rescue the workers as heavy machinery could not be sent to the area. Police said the workers, including owner of the phosphate mine Muhammad Younis, were busy in excavation when heavy rocks rolled down the hill and blocked the entrance, trapping all of them inside. Abbottabad DPO Karim Khan told Dawn that four platoons had been sent to the area for rescue operation.
Source: (Jan. 30, 2012) Pakistan Observer
