Referenced in the Queensland Mines Inspectorate’s accidents and high potential incidents compilation report for the month, there were two injuries involving continuous miners.

A piece of coal fell off the rib and struck the driver’s side platform of a continuous miner at one undisclosed mine, breaking the ankle of the unfortunate operator.

In a separate incident, an operator was using a bolting rig on a continuous miner when two of his fingers became trapped in the returning feed carriage.

The operator had placed his hand on the drill at the time, as he was steadying himself to remove a drill still from the drill pot. One finger was fractured.

A development worker received bruising to his neck and left upper body in one of the more unusual incidents.

The worker was sucked into a fibreglass ventilation tube he was installing.

There were several incidents relating to conveyor equipment.

A fitter was sprayed with oil, but not injured, when a hydraulic line on an armoured face conveyor ruptured.

He was performing a chain tension check on the AFC at the time.

In another incident a worker was cleaning a return idler when his arm went into the nip point between the idler and the conveyor belt, dislocating his elbow.

One serious injury was self-inflicted.

A worker at an undisclosed mine was attempting to enlarge an attachment hole on a piece of conveyor skirting with a Stanley knife.

He accidently severed two tendons on the back of his left hand which required surgery.

There were three explosion-related incidents in underground coal mines during March, with two involving shuttle cars.

One was an arc flash incident after a shuttle car slid into a rib while turning, which jammed the vehicle’s power cable between the car’s outrigger and the rib.

Another shuttle car struck a rib corner, which crushed the power cable and exposed the electrical conductors.

A sparky’s inspection of an undisclosed longwall face also revealed that the tailgate motor’s terminal box lid had a flame path gap of 0.7mm.

In an electrical incident, a longwall pump motor let off a bang while a flash came from the non-drive end of the motor after it was restarted following a period of maintenance.

The most serious incident detailed was the death of an opal miner.

The inspectorate said he was engulfed and trapped by mullock that rilled from a backfilled shaft into the underground workings.

Out of the surface incidents, one of the more unusual ones was when an operator lost control of the ZL50G-I loader he was driving.

It went downhill on a sealed road and drove through the main access gate of the site before coming to rest on a public access road.

A grader also unearthed a live booster and length of detonating cord while scraping an access road.

A 30-tonne excavator about 15-20m away from the crest of a highwall also fell into a pit when a “section of the highwall failed”.

As previously reported, BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance had blast fume incidents at its Saraji and Peak Downs open cut mines during March, with six workers treated for suspected fume exposure.

Overall there were 155 serious accidents and high potential incidents in March, down from 189 in February but still above the 12-month rolling average of 138.