Photo by: Bloomberg
Global body the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) reveals that its member companies lost 33 people in work-related incidents during 2022.
This compares with the 45 fatalities in 2021 and 44 in 2020.
Nine fatalities were related to mobile equipment and transportation and five fatalities were caused by falling objects.
Company member operations in South Africa had the highest number of fatalities, at seven, accounting for 21% of the total fatalities across ICMM member companies.
Meanwhile, 13 out of 26 members companies reported zero fatalities in 2022.
“Everyone deserves to work free from harm, within a safe and healthy industry environment,” says ICMM president and CEO Rohitesh Dhawan.
“ICMM has remained steadfast in our belief that we can always find new ways to improve, and as we enter a period of unprecedented demand for minerals and metals, we will continue to focus on identifying new ways to eliminate fatalities from mining and metals operations,” he adds.
The ICMM began collating and publishing data on members’ safety performance in 2012 with the intention of driving knowledge-sharing, transparency and continual improvement across the industry.
This data is compiled using the ICMM’s ‘Guidance on Health and Safety Performance Indicators’ which was updated in 2021.