The safety battle that never can let up

THEY work in a hostile environment, but over the years Britain's

miners have become masters of it.

It is always a question of touching wood when talking about accidents

at the pitface, but certainly over the past 10 years the safety record

in British nationalised collieries is second to none.

During the financial year to April, one British Coal employee and two

contractors died. Accidents generally were reduced by 17% while at the

same time productivity increased by 20%.

The reduced accident rate is not a result of the drastic rundown in

the industry, as incidents are based on manhours' work.

It is truly a remarkable safety record that can compete with industry

on the surface, and contrasts sharply with the risk level for those

working on such projects as the Channel Tunnel.

''Yes, we are very conscious of safety in the pits, and last year's

statistics are encouraging,'' a British Coal official said. ''However,

they can be improved upon.''

For many in Scotland familiar with tales of mining disasters of the

past which cost hundreds of lives, the modern record must seem

remarkable.

However, potential disasters can never be discounted. Ten years ago, a

huge explosion ripped through Cardowan colliery, Stepps. Seven men were

left dangerously ill and another 39 injured, but it could have been much

worse. The price paid for cutting coal could have been enormous that

day.

That incident was the exception that has proved the rule in recent

years.

Many of the accidents recorded at collieries today are those that can

occur on any building site -- someone tripping over a carelessly

discarded piece of equipment or clothing being caught in moving

machinery. They are probably more likely than not to happen elsewhere

than at the face.

For example, two miners were killed and others were injured a few

years ago when a mini-train was derailed 1600ft below the North Sea at a

Yorkshire colliery. Falls do occur, but they are rare.

Abroad disasters are still not uncommon. It was reported that during

1990 more than 10,000 Chinese died in mining disasters; in June, 52 were

killed in the Ukraine; last year, 148 miners were buried at a pit on

Turkey's Black Sea coast and 26 died in Nova Scotia; and in 1990 134 men

were killed in an explosion at the Kreka pit at Dobrnja in the then

Yugoslavia. South Africa also has had a series of disasters.

The safety awareness instilled in every miner in this country may have

much to do with drastic cut in the UK accident rate in recent years.

As far back as 1982, the National Union of Mineworkers conference was

told: ''The risk of fatal accidents in mining is now little greater than

the risk everyone runs every day on the roads and in the home.''

While Arthur Scargill's NUM may not be prepared to talk about very

much to British Coal, the one area in which his officials are intimately

involved is that of safety. It is also to do with new technology and the

fact that miners no longer work in the tiny seams of former days.

However, the union will not be slow to point out that the safety

situation in a privatised industry could be a very different story

altogether. For example, a miner killed by a rockfall in south Wales

earlier this year became the third fatality in a year at a private mine

in the Principality.

The death in March of Mr Willam Gorman, 35, from New Cumnock,

Ayrshire, in a roof fall at Monktonhall Colliery occurred just after he

had collected his first pay packet after seven years out of work.

It was a setback for the privately run consortium, set up by 166

miners each investing #10,000 in the venture. Mr Gorman, who had

previously worked at Killoch Colliery from leaving school until it

closed in 1986, had come up with his share through the support of his

family and a bank loan.