Travel past the fall area was prohibited and workers had to get to the surface via a second means of egress, according to the NSW Department of Industry weekly incident summary.

“Operators are reminded of the importance of conducting geotechnical assessments of all main travel ways on a regular basis so that high risk areas can be identified and remedial work undertaken prior to a failure of strata,” the department said in its report.

In other geotechnical incidents during the week, a strata failure in the drift resulted in the mine being evacuated and all work stopped.

“All underground operations should regularly inspect strata support in drifts to maintain safe standards,” the department said.

In a gas incident at a NSW underground mine, the mining supervisor found off scale (>5%Ch4) levels of methane on the gas detector on inspection of the drill rig.

“All underground operations should regularly inspect strata support in drifts to maintain safe standards,” the department said.