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25 January, 2010
The Pakistan Central Mines Labour Federation (PCMLF) and the All-Pakistan Central Mines Labour Federation (APLF) jointly held a manifestation on 13 January at the Quetta Press Club to protest safety inaction by Balochistan provincial authorities in coal mining. In the first half of January, at least 21 miners perished in roof cave-ins and methane gas explosions.
The federated mining unions expressed outrage that neither Balochistan authorities nor the Chief Inspectorate of Mines removed the bodies of five dead miners in the days following the tragedies. On 2 January, a gas explosion at the Al-Rahman mine near Marwar killed ten miners, including three Afghan workers.
The blast, which caused a cave-in, occurred 2,000 metres underground. And then on 11 January, two separate mine accidents occurred at the Habibullah Coal Mines Co. near Spin Karez. Three miners died when a roof collapsed, while eight others were trapped and killed following a blast at the mine in the Marwar coal fields.
Speakers at the unions’ 13 January protest said governmental authorities demonstrated “criminal silence” over the loss of lives, as well as denouncing Balochistan officials for not extending financial assistance to the families of the deceased.
Sultan Muhammad Khan
PCMLF Secretary General Sultan Muhammad Khan called it a travesty that miners are denied social benefits, and he said the fact that five miners from the first incident are still entombed at Al-Rahman “speaks volumes about the performance of the Mines Inspectorate.”
Other mine union officials that condemned the inaction, as well as the lack of preventative safety measures in the province’s mines included Bakht Maweb Yousatzai, Abdul Sattar, Syed Altaf Ilussain Shah, Muhammad Jamil, And Rehmatullah Baloch. The mine union leaders said the average death rate in Balochistan coal mining, in southwestern Pakistan, had been 86 known deaths, but that this rate has increased of late because of lack of safety measures in mines.