DETERMINANTS OF ACCIDENT IN THE MINES: A RETROSPECTIVE STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF MINING ACCIDENTS IN GHANA

Abstract

The mining industry continues to be an important sector of the Ghanaian economy, contributing to the foreign exchange, employment and socioeconomic development after the colonial period. The current trend of mining operations requires greater skills and technical knowledge because they involve sophisticated machines, dangerous chemicals and explosive mechanisms, underground operations etc. Accidents in the mines just like any occupational accident may lead to deaths, injuries, disabilities and financial losses. One of the ways of improving occupational knowledge and skills is to acquire some level of understanding of accident causation mechanism. An analytical technique which will form the basis for accident and injury epidemiological studies is therefore necessary to ensure operational safety improvement. A retrospective statistical analysis of accidents in eight gold mining companies was undertaken through measures of association, hypothesis testing, trend analysis and predictive measurements. The results of the study indicate that 20% of accident cases resulted in deaths, 30% were serious and 50% minor accidents. Underground mining increases the risk fatal accident by 1.46, morning shift increases the risk of fatal accident by 4.81 and being a contract miner increases the risk of fatal accident by 1.05. The part of body injured can predict the degree of injury by reducing the error of prediction by 40.2%. Since proportion of accident fatalities increases with increasing age of miners, it is recommended that miners with higher age should not be task with high risk jobs. It is recommended again that, miners should be given improved protective clothes to guide against occurrences of fatal incidents. Especially, clothes to cover the head and upper part of the body since they top the fatality chart and the fact that fatality is strongly associated with body part. Article visualizations: