Published in September 2005 Australian Longwall Magazine

On Sunday night August 21 at precisely 9.37pm, the Anglo Coal Moranbah North coal mine faced its first Level One emergency exercise. It was not the best timing for an emergency, given the usual skeleton staffing on-site over a weekend, but in the nature of such exercises, a sense of realism was crucial.

As is usual practice among the mines inspectors and others that design the exercises, mine management did not know what was about to happen.

The scenario involved an LHD driver, carrying two drums of diesel and two pods of the catalyst component used for polyurethane injection, crashing into a transformer in a cut-through he accidentally entered. The collision generated a fire, “killing” the driver and the man that came to rescue him.

Over the following six hours, the mine’s workforce, management and emergency systems were put to the test to see how they coped with the mock emergency.

The outcome was a mixture of excellent responses in some areas and confusion in others, not uncommon in exercises such as these.

The emergency exercises are run annually by the Queensland Department of Natural Resources & Mines as a way of testing an individual mine’s preparedness to cope with an emergency, as well as returning to industry invaluable lessons about the right and wrong way to cope with disasters. In fact, the most important lessons seem to emerge from the mistakes people make when placed under situations of extreme duress.

“These are blame-free events,” said David Reece, senior inspector of mines (coal), the architect of this year’s exercise, underlining the fact that in all past exercises mistakes were made.

The planned scenario unfolded when the mine least expected it – nightshift on a Sunday. As a result, limited senior personnel were on-site and those there were placed under tremendous strain - exactly as planned.

The incident involved polyurethane (PUR), normally consisting of two components that are mixed to form pumpable resin. As mixed product, PUR is managed as a high-risk commodity, but individual components are normally low on the risk radar.

Reece said PUR was chosen to focus attention on the handling of hazardous materials underground. “The suppliers and contractors that use this stuff have specialised pods which are secure. Normally this won’t be an issue, but you can’t be complacent.”

David Cliff, director of research at the Minerals Industry Safety & Health Centre (MISHC), helped design the exercises, along with ventilation and modelling expert Martin Watkinson of SIMTARS.

Watkinson said the PUR catalyst was a very hazardous chemical to take underground.

“It generates toxic fumes and foams when water is applied, making it very hard to control – all the things you don’t want when you’re fighting a fire,” he said.

Cliff’s expertise with gas is one reason he has participated in all of the previous nine emergency exercises conducted in the state.

With the scene set, the mine’s first indication something was wrong came when the power went out followed by a CO alarm close to the location of the fire.

The shift supervisor, Al Harris, underground at the time, responded to the event by going to identify what had happened and launching a firefighting team.

“The main man (Harris) for the initial response was down the pit and he responded very well. In the meantime, on the surface all sorts of communications were bombarding the poor guy in the control room who was trying to understand and make sense of it all,” Reece said.

“Alarms were going off, phones were ringing, computers were throwing out information and the controller was trying to generate PED messages to underground workers.

“Sunday night - he was totally overloaded, as you would expect.”

As Reece pointed out, even the coolest head gets utterly flustered in a situation as fraught as an emergency, even if it is pretend.

The central role played by the control room has been noted in all previous exercises. It is the primary conduit through which all the information flows. Cliff has noted the same thing in every emergency exercise: not enough attention being paid to how a control room operates in an emergency. And of course in one respect that’s totally understandable, given that a control room’s primary function is to keep the mine running smoothly.

One outcome of the Moranbah events is a suggestion to provide the control room officer with a computer icon able to send out automated messages in the event of an emergency.

Both Cliff and Reece complimented the mine on the way the exercise was handled, saying the initial response was excellent and the escape process generally good.

The “firefighting” proved difficult to simulate, with the teams getting too close to the imaginary fire. A lack of reality in the simulation has been identified as a problem with the exercise in general, and in future there are plans to make these exercises even more realistic than they are now.

Information flow, however, appeared somewhat lacking; again, a commonly noted occurrence. Assessors at the mine to observe the unfolding drama noted little or no use of tools such as whiteboards, and by and large duty cards weren’t accessed.

Duties requiring action – identifying how many people were underground for example - were not divided and responsibilities not clearly delegated, resulting in several people trying to fulfil the same task in some cases. Some valiant attempts were made to form support teams, such as the planning team, but the information flow did not support this.

The bottom-line? “The Moranbah North exercise emphasises the experience from all the past exercises - the need to have a robust system in place and one that is highly practised,” Cliff said.

“You have to have a clear and simple system for responding, and this must be practiced, because on the day you’ll revert to what you practice.”

But as both Reece and Cliff acknowledge, this is easier said than done.

The mine struggled to cope with some aspects of the event partly because it is undergoing a transition from an Incident Management Team (IMT) model to an Incident Control System (ICS). As a result, the new system was not yet properly bedded down.

Also, until recently workforce turnover was fairly high, further diluting the integrity of an emergency response system which is heavily dependent on key functions being performed.

A bit harsh to launch this exercise during a time of transition? Perhaps, but real emergencies do not pick the best time to happen. And if the exercise gave those at Moranbah North even a glimpse of what to expect in a real emergency, the pain of the night was well worthwhile.

Both agree Moranbah North should be commended for exposing its emergency response system to external scrutiny and test. “Mine manager Gareth Jones is also to be recognised. He sorted information and called the shots; he is a man you would want in a tight spot to get things done,” Reece said.

Meanwhile, the mine has begun to take on board the lessons of that Sunday night and has introduced training to improve perceived shortfalls.