Mining injuries in Serbian underground coal mines -- a 10-year study

Mining, especially underground coal mining, has always been a dangerous occupation. Injuries, unfortunately, even those resulting in death, are one of the major occupational risks that all miners live with. Despite the fact that all workers are aware of the risk, efforts must be and are being made to increase the safety of mines. Injury monitoring and data analysis can provide us with valuable data on the causes of accidents and enable us to establish a correlation between the conditions in the work environment and the number of injuries, which can further lead to proper preventive measures. This article presents the data on the injuries in Serbian coal mines during a 10-year period (2000-2009). The presented results are only part of an ongoing study whose aim is to assess the safety conditions in Serbian coal mines and classify them according to that assessment.