Underground Coal Mining Methods and Their Impact on Safety

Abstract

In underground coal mining, the working environment is completely enclosed by the geologic medium, which consists of the coal seam and overlying and underlying strata. Depillaring is one of the most dangerous phases of underground coal mining. Even after centuries of experience in underground coal mining, there is no well-established depillaring method w.r.t existing geo-mining method. As far as fatal accidents are concerned, most of the fatal accidents occur mostly during depillaring operations. Method of extraction is one of the keys and underrated parameters, which plays an eminent role in successful depillaring in underground coal mining. This chapter highlights the underground coal mining methods and their impact on safety.