A 59-year-old worker has died in an accident at the Teck Coal operated Coal Mountain Mine near Sparwood in southeastern British Columbia, at about 2.00 am local time on Sunday 16 March 2014. The name of the deceased has not been released at this time, nor have any details of the accident, which Teck Coal are describing as a 'serious incident'. An investigation into the incident will be carried out by the British Columbia Ministry of Energy and Mines.
Operations at Coal Mountain. Teck Coal.
The Coal Mountain mine covers an area of 30 km², where around 2 700 000 tonnes of coal are extracted from open pits annually, principally for the steel industry. There are around 175 employees at the site, which is generally considered to have a good safety record. The mine is a mountaintop removal operation, in which sixteen coal seems forming around 8-12% of the total thickness of the Mist Mountain Formation, which is exposed in the Front Ranges of southeastern British Columbia and Southwestern Alberta, but heavily deformed by the mountain forming processes, discouraging the digging of pits to access the coal.
Section showing typical exposure of the Mist Mountain Formation at Coal Mountain. InfoMine.
The approximate location of the Coal Mountain Mine. Google Maps.
See also Two workers killed by gas at Colorado silver mine, Athabasca River polluted by mine runoff, Fatality at Wyoming coal mine, Fatality at Illinois coal mine and Worker killed at West Virginia coal mine.
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