Fatality at BMA’s Blackwater mine

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Image credit: www.bhpbilliton.com

A man was killed in a truck accident at the Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA) coal mine in Blackwater, Central Queensland, on Thursday.

Image credit: www.bhpbilliton.com
Image credit: www.bhpbilliton.com

The vehicle rolled over while transporting workers on a down ramp during a change of shift.

The man killed was a father of two and a grandfather to two.

The Police Forensic Crash Unit was immediatelly called in to investigate the crash. Work at the BMA site had stopped temporarily as a precaution and the company was providing its full support to investigators.

Adertisement

The company confirmed the fatality in a news release, stating that it too was conducting its own investigations in order to prevent such accidents occurring in the future.

“BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA) confirms that an accident this morning at its Blackwater Mine involving a raptor transporter vehicle has sadly resulted in a fatality. Authorities are currently on site investigating the incident and we are providing our full support,” reads BHP’s statement.

“We are providing assistance to the family of the deceased, in addition to BMA employees and contractors at the operation. Our colleague was a father of two and a grandfather to two. As a precaution, operations on site have temporarily ceased. We are also conducting our own investigations to understand how this incident could have occurred and to ensure every action is taken to prevent something similar in the future.”

According to Reuters, this is the second accident at a Queensland coal mine in the past month and the fourth coal industry fatality in central Queensland in less than 12 months.

BMA, Australia’s largest coal producer, accounts for more than a quarter of Australia’s annual coal exports and 28 percent of the world’s seaborne trade in metallurgical coal.