Work for Miners' Safety Starts in Barapukuria
Commercial production to resume soon
Barapukuria Coal Mining Company Ltd has started safety maintaining work in the mine to resume its commercial production soon as per the recommendations of two British and Chinese experts.
"The experts suggested that we have to start safety maintaining work at Barapukuria to stop further accident, a Petrobangla official said adding, "We have started the job and monitoring every moment's situation."
Barapukuria suspended its operation from May 11 due to a roof collapse at the coal mine that left one dead and 19 others injured.
"Hopefully we would be able to resume our operation from August 15 and reinstate our labour from tomorrow," said the official.
Following the incident, the government engaged the British and Chinese experts to opinion on the coal mine to find out the ways and means to resume its operation through ensuring safety of the miners.
The authorities stopped commercial production as the experts opined that the incident is a pre-warning of a large-scale disaster in the mine.
They apprehended that a large-scale disaster in the mine might occur in future if any effective measure is not taken immediately. Coal extraction from the mine has remained suspended causing a loss of Tk 2.75 crore a day, the sources said.
The amount of coal stock is 47 thousand metric tonnes. The experts are very critical of resuming the operation. They suggested observing the situation to start drilling and blasting above the coal seam. A top official at the energy ministry said they are taking appropriate measures as per the experts' recommendations.
The authorities are now injecting water into the hard rock areas above the coal seam very slowly, he added. "The experts alleged that the authorities used low quality timbers instead of steel support in the vacated phases," he added.
According to the experts' view the three mine-out phases, which have no steel support are creating pressure upon the coal roof of 1108 phase making it highly vulnerable to sudden collapse (weight bump).
According to the Barapukuria coal mine company, the accident occurred at 1108 phase below 1,250 feet from the surface because it was too vulnerable to sudden collapse as this phase was surrounded by three vacated phases (1106, 1104 and 1110 phases) after coal extraction.
The 1110 phase has been sealed off since 2005 gas leakage accident after a partial coal extraction.
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