Mining in Pakistan: a call for safety

A mining tragedy struck the marble hills in Mardan District this April. Collapsing rock and sliding earth buried nine labourers and injured several others, an avoidable disaster in a setting where safety is too often an afterthought. These were not freak accidents, but predictable result of mining on unstable slopes without engineered support, without proper protective equipment, and without trained oversight. For local communities, such deaths are mourned and then quietly absorbed into routine memory. For the nation, they rarely trigger reform. Unsafe mining in Pakistan has become a normalized tragedy rather than an unacceptable occupational failure.

This pattern is not confined to one district or one province. Across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Balochistan, and Sindh, coal mines, marble quarries, gemstone pits, and chromite excavations operate with minimal safety compliance. Roof falls, gas suffocation, dust inhalation, explosive mishandling, and slope collapses are recurring causes of death. Many miners work without helmets, respirators, eye protection, or reinforced footwear. Training is rare and supervision is weaker. Informal contractors often prioritize output over safety, and inspections in remote areas are sporadic or symbolic.

Available studies and provincial records show the scale of the problem. An analysis of surface mining accidents in Punjab between 2004 and 2018 recorded 377 deaths in 361 accidents, with inadequate personal protective equipment and primitive mining practices cited as primary causes. Similar patterns are reported from coal mines in Balochistan and marble quarries in KP. Yet national statistics remain fragmented due to under-reporting and the informal nature of many operations. The true human cost is almost certainly higher than what is documented.

A critical institutional gap is Pakistan’s weak alignment with global mine-safety frameworks such as the International Labour Organization Safety and Health in Mines Convention. Where international standards demand structured training, hazard reporting, ventilation systems, ground support engineering, and mandatory PPE, enforcement in Pakistan remains inconsistent. Laws exist on paper, but implementation falters in the field.

Globally, mining is undeniably hazardous. It accounts for a disproportionate share of workplace fatalities despite employing a small fraction of the workforce. Estimates suggest over 12,000 miner deaths annually worldwide, with millions suffering non-fatal injuries. Yet the global story is also one of progress. Countries that treated mining deaths as systemic failures rather than fate have dramatically reduced fatalities over time.

In the United States, successive legislation and strict enforcement by mine-safety authorities reduced annual mining deaths from historically high levels in the early twentieth century to well under a hundred in recent years. Engineered roof support, methane detection systems, ventilation standards, emergency response protocols, and compulsory safety training transformed the industry’s risk profile. In Australia, a collaborative safety culture between regulators, companies, and workers led to sharp declines in fatality rates over the past two decades. In Canada and parts of Europe, mines now integrate real-time gas monitoring, proximity sensors, automated hazard alerts, and IoT-enabled smart protective gear as standard practice.

The situation in Pakistan stands in sharp contrast. The protective systems considered basic elsewhere, engineered slope stabilization, geotechnical surveys before excavation, gas sensors, reinforced helmets, respirators, fall-arrest systems, communication devices, trained rescue teams are largely absent in small and medium mining sites here. For many operators, such equipment is seen as an expense rather than an investment. For many workers, risk is accepted as part of earning a daily wage.

This fatalism is perhaps the most dangerous factor of all. Mining accidents are often described as unavoidable acts of nature, not preventable failures of planning and protection. This mindset erodes accountability. It allows contractors to continue unsafe practices and authorities to overlook enforcement lapses. It also hides the economic argument for safety: fewer injuries mean fewer work stoppages, higher productivity, lower medical and social costs, and greater credibility in global mineral supply chains increasingly sensitive to labour standards.

Pakistan’s mining sector does not lack potential but a safety revolution. Such a revolution requires more than condolences after each tragedy. It demands enforceable national standards aligned with international conventions. It requires provincial inspectorates to be empowered, resourced, and held accountable. It requires mandatory training certification for miners, compulsory PPE provision by employers, and penalties that make non-compliance more expensive than compliance. It calls for introducing affordable hazard-detection technologies and basic engineering assessments before excavation begins, especially in hillside marble and gemstone quarries.

Most importantly, it requires a cultural shift that values the miner’s life as much as the mineral extracted. The miners who died in Mardan were not statistics. They were breadwinners working in conditions that would be unacceptable in most parts of the world. Their deaths remind us that progress is not measured by how much stone is removed from a mountain, but by whether those who remove it return home safely.

Beyond the dust and collapsing rock lies a simple but unforgiving test for Pakistan, whether a man can earn his livelihood in the mines without risking his life each day he goes to work. Until this is answered not in statements but in real reform, the hills will continue to take lives that should have been protected by safer systems, stronger oversight, and a basic commitment to human dignity.