Emergency planning for underground coal mining

The present work describes the first approach to a complete Emergency Plan (EP) in a Spanish underground coal mine. Its foremost objective was to obtain a global safety methodology, including the following concepts: Study of the laws and regulations concerning this plan. Risk analysis of the operations, in order to assess its safety degree. Systematic location of the available human and material resources. Emergency managing, where staff roles are structured, as a function of the emergency level. During the development of this methodology, the EP contents were adapted to the specific characteristics of an underground coal mine (operation system, human and material resources, etc.), and to those situations considered as high risk in the analysis. In this particular case, a fire in belt conveyor was considered as the main risk. Finally, though the EP is focused to an underground mine, its structure is flexible, and allows the following changes: The introduction of modifications resulting from the mine evolution To be applied to other coal mines.