The 4th International Symposium on Mine Safety Science and Engineering (ISMSSE2018)

280 / 2018-04-26 15:01:45

Characteristics of poor safety culture within coal mine enterprises based on accident statistics

Safety culture,Coal mine accidents,Characteristic,Safety communication,Coworkers’ safety

Mine Safety Science Theory and Emergency Rescue > Theory of mine safety science

Safety culture plays an important role in antecedents of enterprise safety conditions, of which defects may cause various accidents. Despite a downward trend in major accident numbers and casualties in coal mine enterprises recently, accident reoccurrence remains an on-going issue for coal mine industry. The aim of this paper is to find the characteristics of poor safety culture driving in typical coal accidents, based on the statistic of recurrent accident patterns.
According to the multilevel with 14 dimensions of safety culture, 67 typical major accidents (gas explosion, gas outburst, flooding and fire) were studied by reanalyzing accident reports in systematic methods. The analysis results revealed that characteristics of poor safety culture of coal mine enterprises are not concerned with the accident types. And the most prominent characteristics are manifested in four aspects: management commitment deficiency, flaws in management actions towards safety, poor safety compliance and participation of employee, imperfect work condition, mainly related with elements such as: ignore safety laws and regulations (occurrence frequency in accident reports is 100%), unrealized of safety priority (100%), limited role of functional departments (86.6%, 83.6%), insufficient attention on safety education for special operation personnel and mining workers (80.6%), high satisfaction degree with equipment especially for ventilation facilities, gas detection equipment and other special equipment (74.6%), neglect the importance of safety knowledge, awareness and self-protection ability (77.6%). Specifically, we discussed the impaction of functional department role, safety communication, coworkers’ safety and supervision climate on how to improve safety culture. By illuminating accident reports and exploring characteristics of poor safety culture within coal mine enterprises systemically, this study provides the information and suggestions necessary to create excellent safety culture and reduce coal mine accidents further.