Although countless safety improvements have been made in the mining sector over the years, mines remain one of the most hazardous places to work.

When an incident does occur, it can be difficult to identify what happened. A new ISO standard, ISO 19434, aims to prevent these accidents by classifying each incident by type and cause.

ISO 19434 was developed by ISO technical committee on mining, ISO/TC 82. Convenor of the working group on classification of mine accidents, WG 6, Seyed Reza Hosseini, said ISO 19434 represents a new direction for their work.

“Until now ISO mining standards mostly looked at safety features for machinery,” Hosseini said. “ISO 19434 looks at the accidents themselves, giving each accident a code that indicates its causes and consequences.”

The classifications given in ISO 19434 enable organizations to identify whether accidents have occurred due to human error or other causes.

“This International Standard defines not only the main types of accidents but, importantly, provides information about the nature of any injuries that have occurred, defining their location and to what degree personnel are affected,” Hosseini said.

The publication of ISO 19434 addresses a long-standing need for a comprehensive classification system for mining accidents that could present a standard scheme for all associated factors.