Coal dust is a fine-powdered form of coal which is created by the crushing, grinding, or pulverization of coal rock. Because of the brittle nature of coal, coal dust can be created by mining, transporting, or mechanically handling it.
Le Petit Journal illustration of the Courrières mine disaster
Coal miner spraying rock dust to mitigate coal dust in a mine.
A mining accident is an accident that occurs during the process of mining minerals or metals. Thousands of miners die from mining accidents each year, especially from underground coal mining, although accidents also occur in hard rock mining. Coal mining is considered much more hazardous than hard rock mining due to flat-lying rock strata, generally incompetent rock, the presence of methane gas, and coal dust. Most of the deaths these days occur in developing countries, and rural parts of developed countries where safety measures are not practiced as fully. A mining disaster is an incident where there are five or more fatalities.
Senghenydd pit, UK 1913.
The Farmington coal mine disaster kills 78. West Virginia, US 1968.
A memorial to the men killed in the Crandall Canyon Mine collapse.
Breaking the News, painted by Australian artist John Longstaff in 1887, depicts a miner informing a widow of her husband's death in a mining accident.