As a result of these initiatives, mining deaths and injuries have significantly declined in this century, although even the current relatively low injury numbers and frequency rates are still unacceptable to safety professionals in the American mining community and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA).

From 1880 to 1910, mine explosions and other accidents claimed thousands of victims. The deadliest year in U.S. coal mining history was 1907, when 3,242 deaths occurred. That year, America's worst mine explosion ever killed 358 people near Monongah, WV.

While metal and nonmetal (non-coal) mining was less deadly than coal mining, available records for the era show that it, too, was highly hazardous. Fires, explosions and cave-ins caused many deaths and injuries. One of the deadliest non-coal mining accidents involved a mine fire in Montana that killed 163 men in 1917.

With each passing decade, the annual number of mining deaths and the even more significant rates of injuries (measuring numbers of injuries against hours worked) have declined.

Total deaths in all types of U.S. mining, which had averaged 1,500 or more during earlier decades, decreased on average during the 1990's, to under 100 and reached a record low of 55 in 2004. There were 57 mining fatalities in 2005. The average annual injuries to miners have also decreased steadily.

Where annual coal mining deaths had numbered more than 1,000 a year in the early part of the 20th century, they decreased to an average of about 451 annual fatalities in the 1950s, and to 141 in the 1970s. The yearly average in coal mining decreased to 45 fatalities during the 1990's.

Less dramatic yet still impressive have been the safety gains in metal and nonmetal mining. There were an average of 233 deaths yearly in the 1930s, compared to 51 fatalities annually in the 1990-99 period.

Significant reductions in rates of mining deaths also have been achieved over the years.

For example, the rate of coal mining deaths decreased from about .20 fatalities per 200,000 hours worked by miners (or one death per million production hours) in 1970 to about .07 fatalities in 1977 and an average of .03 fatalities for the 1995-99 period.

The metal and nonmetal mining death rate per 200,000 employee hours averaged .02 for the 1995-99 period, compared to average yearly rates about seven times higher in the 1930s and three times as high in the 1950s.

The year 2004 was the safest year in modern mining history, with a total of 55 coal and metal and nonmetal mining fatalities.

There was an all-time low 22 coal mining fatalities in 2005, compared to the previous all-time coal industry low of 27 in 2002. During a period in 1992, from May 27 to July 14, the coal mining industry did not experience any fatal accidents while producing many million tons of coal--a period of rare length in mining history.

The all-time low for metal and nonmetal mining fatalities was 26 in 2003, compared to 27 in 2004, the second safest year in non-coal mining. There were 35 metal and nonmetal mining fatalities in 2005.

A combination of factors has been responsible for the dramatic safety gains in the U.S. mining industry since the turn of the century. The major elements of these accomplishments have been the following:

• Congressional creation in 1910 of the U.S. Bureau of Mines, whose primary roles were to investigate accidents, advise industry, conduct production and safety research and teach courses in accident prevention, first aid and mine rescue;
  
  
• Federal and state laws to better advise and regulate the mining industry, to extend coverage to all types of miners, to require or encourage use of successful safety procedures and technology, to provide effective miner training, and to focus on reducing or eliminating the most serious hazards. The most far-reaching laws were the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 and the more comprehensive Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977;
  
  
• Creation in 1973 of the Mining Enforcement and Safety Administration in the Interior Department, which assumed safety and health enforcement responsibilities from the Bureau of Mines. And four years later, following passage of the 1977 Act, creation of the present Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), which was moved to the Labor Department.
  
  
• Introduction of vastly safer and more productive mining machines and systems, ever-safer mining methods, a growing awareness of the importance of effective accident prevention programs among both management and miners, and a more cooperative attitude toward safety issues by the mining industry, labor and government.
  
  

For more information, contact:

Program Education and Outreach Services , MSHA Headquarters, Arlington, Va. (202) 693-9400. Your local MSHA office (check your local phone book under "U.S. Government").

The MSHA homepage on the World Wide Web through an Internet on-line service. The homepage address is: http://www.msha.gov.