By GIANT MINER Saturday ,26th of March 2021
Mining as an operation that involves the Exploitation of valuable ore or rock from the earth crust must be carryout at safety to health and to the environment (including general public).
Mining operations both surface and underground should be such that is environmental safe and not causing hazard to workers and general public health and safety. Taking a transparent look at the Nigeria Minerals and mining Act 2007 and the Nigeria Minerals and Mining Regulation 2011, the chapter 1, part iv Section 4(j), and its Regulation 2011 section 3(b) empowered and state the obligation of the Nation Minister for Mines and steel development to ensure that a measure is put in place to ensure that the welfarism and safety of all workers and general public relating with mineral operation is garantee. The section 17(b) of the ACT and the
Section 5(2)(h) of it regulation make it as an obligation to the mine inspectorate Department MID to supervise the enforcement of this Act and other health and safety laws in force on the mine operators and Mineral title holders. The regulation give room for the obligation of MID, mines environmental compliance Department MECD and other offices of MMSD to ensure mine operation are carry out with no environmental impact and good health and safety condition.
The ACT part v section 70(I) and the 2011 regulation also order the compliance of all mine operator in Nigeria to the act and all mining legislation and require that all mine operation be carry out in a safe condition.
Starting a Quarry close to community and Dam station is not a safe acts?
But a dangerous and hazardous attempt just like suicide mission it's beyond threatening to host community to fraustrating their peace of mind.
Accident within this week in Nigeria
Read about the accident Here
The incident is what I term illegality of legal influence in Mining Act and mining regulation.
The concern quarry is said to be located near resident and near dam which is against Mining Act and regulations. The company make use of Explosive for rock fragmentation which subject the dam to be highly hazard source with high level risk.
One of the power of Enact act and regulations is to be able to control the concern event and operation strictly without any government and NGO influence.
Thou some mining operations like dredging, hydraulicing may not generate dust like Quarry operation that involves rock excavation through Drilling and Blasting operation.
Drilling operation not just a point sources for dust generation but also generate noise due to the interaction between the rotating drill bit and the insitu rock.
Blasting operation was once define as a controlled bombing use for rock breakage. Blasting operation is not just hazardous or a principal hazard source but a dangerous operation that should be handled by experts and professional. This operation is capable of projecting rock debris in place of flyrock, cause ground vibration, airblast and noise pollution among other blast related Accidents if not we'll design. At least in no condition should a mine site be less than 500meters from building. Thou there are isolation control, preventive and suppression control measures (e.g blast mat for fly rock prevention and presplitting, post splitting, line hole drilling, cushion blasting techniques) still blasting around community and near dam for production is a bad engineering etiquette.
The origin of explosion noise during blasting
The explosion noise (airblast) from Blasting is as a result of gas energy release immediately after the release of shock wave from detonated Explosive charge. Explosive as an energetic chemical compound undergo exothermic reaction to generate heat and high pressure has called Explosion pressure.
The Explosive charge in each blast hole recieve instantaneous shock wave from the primer which amplified the wave from the surface Detonator. The Explosive spontaneously release shock wave why the composition disintegrate continuously. At complete disintegration, the whole Explosive charge generate huge gas Energy which is maximum at the initiation point and reduce gradually with time.
The sound from the explosion is to cast the fractured rock mass, to throw it and break it down. In a bit to fulfill this obligation, there is collision between air particles and rock particles which impact change in wave traveling direction and cause a loud noise in the earth vacuum.
The release energy can travels on the ground as P-wave, S-wave and L wave.
Shock from Explosion can generate high risk hazard of principal negative impact on human if unaware talkless of residence been close to the mine.
Some of the effect of explosion gas released by Explosive Deton are:
Noise pollution
Dust pollution
Rock debris and fragment projection
Ground vibration. Among others.
RECOMMENDATION S
1.Mining should be well regulated and monitored right from the set up time, before issuing mining license, Blasting licence and other titles, site inspection should be done.
Effect of oversight
Swiss cheese model of human error by REASON in 1990 explain clearly the place of unsafe act supervision as one of the deficiency of accident occurrence. Likewise latent failure in place of ministry mine inspectorate Department and MECD believing in just submission of environmental impact assessment (EIA) as way of assuring saftey mine setup without site inspection and monitoring. Mining, Blasting and other operation become different on ground compare to book. Oversight is a killing virus, which is fast killing than COVID19, Government bodies loss tax, royalty and annual service fees because they are far from the site. Mining is site work not file or book work. Mining is beyond reports submitted by the mine operator, good visitation to mine site by competent person is the key to effect enforcement of ACT, REGULATIONS, LEGISLATION AND MINE HEALTH AND SAFTY LAWS.
Many mine companies will die in debt because of oversight supervision, don't supervise mining, blasting from the table and board point of view. You must be involved to revolve mining productivity and safety.
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Together we make mining operation safe and profitable.
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