Identifying Hazards, Risk

Assessment & its Control

A hazard is anything that has the potential to cause harm.

Hazard is defined as any activity, procedure, plant,
process, substance, situation, or other circumstances that
could pose a RISK to Health and Safety to a number of
Generic Hazards
 Risk Management
IDENTIFY HAZARDS

ASSESS RISKS

SELECT CONTROL MEASURES

IMPLEMENT CONTROL MEASURES

MONITOR & REVIEW

 Assemble the Team
A team approach is recommended to
establish hazards in workplace
Team consists of Manager, Engineer, Safety
Officer, Supervisor, Workers from different
aspects of the operation.
It provides different perspectives on views,
likelihood, consequences and controls that
are both practical feasible and cost
effective.
The members of the team should be varied
from session to session to gain a broad
perspective of the hazards across a site.
 Identifying Hazards
Previous experiences of accidents or
occurrences on the mine/site
Work process evaluation
Consultation with employees who may have
experience in the job.
Off-site specialists with experience at other
mine/sites (Consultants)
Safety statistics for this or other mines/sites
Significant incident, near-miss, or accident
reports (last 10 years accident records)
Inspection in the mines
 Risk assessment Process
Assemble Identify Determine

Review Hazards Review Ranking

Determine Rank

Initiate

Flow Diagram for Risk Assessment Process

 Hazard identification during Inspection
Hazard & Operability Study (HAZOP)

The Workers : Find out the Workers

Know the correct & safe way of doing the job
Understand the dangers they may face
Understand the purpose of functioning all the safety
devices affecting them.
Know that any defect or unsafe condition must be
reported to their senior officials.
Understand importance of protective equipment
Understand warning signals
Understand fire hazards & emergency standing orders.
 Continued
Work method : Points to check are
Prescribed safety devices maintained and work
procedure adopted.
Provisions of safety guards & fences.
Adequate illumination for the job.
Materials, tools and equipment are safe.
Dust suppression devices are in order.
Work area : Check all in working areas
Ventilation is adequate
Roof & sides are safe, supports are in place
The place of work has 2 outlets with safe
condition for immediate use.
House keeping at the place of work is good and
free from obstruction and slippery
 Health hazards in Mining
Industry
Dust Hazards-Dust is released while
drilling, blasting, crushing, transportation,
loading, unloading etc.
These are closely associated with high
levels of air borne coal and metal dust
including asbestos and exposure to free
silica
Inhalation and retention in excess amount
of such dust over the length of time may
lead to serious respiratory health problems
including Pneumoconiosis
Entry of Dust (lead) Into The Body
Inhalation (breathing)

Ingestion (by mouth)

Skin (open cuts)

Prolong exposure to dust (lead) will begin

to be stored in the body. It will be
deposited in skeleton and various
organs

Your system can not reduce the amount

of lead stored inside thus individuals
begin to suffer symptoms of lead poisoning
Personal Protective Equipment
 Noise Hazards
One of the important physical hazards which
mining workers are exposed to, due to use of
modern machinery, is High intensity noise in
different working areas.
Continuous exposure to high intensity Noise can
cause a serious occupational illness called Noise
induced hearing loss (NIHL) which is irreversible
damage to the highly sensitive internal auditory
organ.
On study of Audiograms of a large section of
employees working in mechanized mines, 18% of
total population was noted to be having abnormal
audiogram for either one ear or for both the ears
 Vibration Hazards
Another important area of concern in the field
of physical hazard, due to use of Modern
machinery, is vibration.
Workers using different machinery like Drills,
Excavators, Dozers, Dumpers, Loaders, Surface
miners, Conveyors etc. are exposed to high
degree of whole body and segmental
vibrations, during their entire shift of working
over a period of time.
Exposure to whole body vibration can cause
either permanent damage, or disturb both the
central as well as peripheral nervous system.
Daily exposure to whole body vibration over a
number of years result in serious physical
damage, for example: ischemic lumbago.
 Daily exposure to hand-arm vibration
over a number of years can cause
permanent physical damage known as
white-finger syndrom. It can also have
circulatory neural effects in the joints and
muscles of the fingers, wrist and elbow.
Lumbago amongst HEMM Operators is a
common problem.
Vibration also affects number of other
organ systems in human body in addition
to Musculoskeletal and nervous system.
 Chemical hazards
When cocentration of COHB in blood exceeds
10-15 gm/100 gm of Hb, symtoms like
giddiness, nausea, vomiting starts.
Carbon-Monoxide Poisoning-CO is a
combustible gas, affinity towards
Haemaglobin(Hb). It binds with oxygen and
forms Carboxy-Haemoglobin and interferes
with delivery of oxygen to the tissue.
With the increase of concentration the
person may become comatosed and
ultimately may die when the concentration
exceeds 50gm/100gm of Hb.
 Metal Poisoning-Many metals due to their
harmful chemical properties cause
tremendous adverse effects on health
Manganese effects respiratory and nervous
system leading to Psychic changes,
disturbances in speech.
Mercury causes Pneumonitis and extensive
damage to the nervous system causing
abnormal behaviour.
Lead effects gastro-intestinal system
Chromium causes extensive damage to skin
and mucus membrane
Beryllium causes granulomatus changes in
vital organs like lungs, lever, kidneys etc.
 Mechanical hazards
Introduction of large high capacity
shovels, Dumpers, Draglines, Surface
miners, Drills etc. has brought massive
changes in the pattern of health hazard
exposure to mining work force.
Main causes are:
1. Faulty structure of seats of the machine
2. Wrong posture of the employees
3. Faulty ways of lifting and handling
heavy equipment.
 Following percentage of employees
working in mechanized mines suffer
from various Musculo-skeletan disorders
due to mechanical hazards:
1.Low back pain 35% of total population
2.Cervical spondylosis 15% of total
population
3.Intervertibral disc prolapse 0.3%
In addition to these problems, the
workmen were also seen to be suffering
from repetive stress injuries very
frequently
 Biological Hazards
BiologicalHazards are mainly harmful
Micro organisms and some other
harmful creatures causing various
diseases as classified in following
categories:
a) Gastrointestinal disorders like
Diarrhea, Dysentry, and Cholera
b) Malaria
c) Tetanus
d) Snake/rodent bite
Biological disorders are due to following
factors:
Unsuitable drinking water supply
Improper sewerage system in the
residential areas.
Inadequate maintenance of canteens, rest
shelters and other places where food is
consumed.
Existence of unfilled holes, gutters,
trenches in and around the working places.
Inadequate maintenance of personal
hygiene by the food handlers.
 Recording of Hazards
Look at specific issues and jobs. Break
processes up into nodes
Examine each node independently and
look at failure modes.
Examine accident prone jobs or situation
Carry out a brain storming exercise and
visit the site to identify all hazards that
are likely or less likely, have major or
minor impact and importance
Reporting of hazards by staff /workers.
Record findings
 Assessment of the Risk &
Ranking

Identify which risks are most in need of

attention, and the options for achieving that risk
reduction.
Identify which risks need careful ongoing
management, the nature of the ongoing
management as well as the indicators that show
that the risk is being managed.
Identify triggers which might be used to monitor
that hazard and initiate remedial action if
elimination is not feasible
 Risk Ranking
Risk ranking is carried out by considering both the
likelihood of the occurrence of each hazard & the
potential consequences.
Risks are ranked according to the level of risk i.e.
the highest risk to the lowest risk.
Risks are ranked to identify those requiring
immediate attention and maximize benefits from
the efforts.
Risk Score = Likelihood x Consequences
Consequence is the size of the loss or damage to
the asset. It is the degree of harm that could be
caused to people exposed to the hazard, the
potential severity of injuries or ill-health.
Likelihood is the chance that the hazard might occur
 Risk Ranking Contd.
Detail analysis of risk ranking is
considered on replacement of likelihood
by Exposure(% of time persons are
present) and probability (chance that
will be harmed).
Risk Score=Probability x Exposure x

Consequences
 Treatment Control & Action Plan
Elimination: Remove step to eliminate the
hazard completely (100%)
Substitution: Replace with less hazardous
material, substance or process (75%)
Separation: Isolate hazard from person by
guarding, space or time separation (50%)
Administration: Adjusting the time or conditions
of risk exposure (30%)
Training: Improving skills making tasks less
hazardous to persons involved (20%)
Personal Protective Equipment: Appropriately
designed & properly fitted where other controls
are not practicable (5%)
 Auditing & Review
Review the effectiveness of the programmes
within the safety management plan
Indicate whether policies, regulations, and
expectations are being met.
Both internal & external audits are
considered
Management team would have to decide how
often would audits be done, and what
systems or areas would be audited and
reporting arrangements.
THANK YOU