Fatal gas explosion accidents on Chinese coal mines and the characteristics of unsafe behaviors: 2000-2014

Although the total death toll due to various accidents in China's coal mining industry has decreased in recent years, coal mine gas explosion is still occupied the main proportion of major accident and threatening miners' lives. The repeated occurrence of gas explosions, often in a similar manner and triggered by unsafe behavior, indicates that we failed to learn from the past and make inadequate changes in response. In an effort to further reduce these rates, the human factors associated with accident need to be addressed. The exact direct causation and sub-standard performance at operator level have been quantitatively identified and classified within the sample of 201 significant gas explosions in China across 2000-2014. An analysis of the data revealed that unsafe behavior existed in and had precipitated influence to all of gas explosion accidents in sample, and all unsafe behaviors can be analyzed from 3 dimensions: accident site, working craft and equipment and installation. By illuminating the unsafe behaviors and its distribution characteristics in a systematic fashion, this study has provided mine safety professionals the information necessary to reduce gas explosion further. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.