Occupational accidents in artisanal mining in Katanga, D.R.C.

INTRODUCTION: This study focuses on accidents in artisanal mining, to support policies improving miners' employability. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Based on a questionnaire administered in November 2009 to a sample of 180 miners from the artisanal mining of LUPOTO, in the Province of Katanga, we explored significant trends between the accidents and their consequences and behavioral or sociological variables. RESULTS: During the 12 months preceding the study, 392 accidents occurred, affecting 72.2% of miners. Tools handling represents 51.5%, of the accidents' causes, followed by handling heavy loads (32.9%). Factors such as age, seniority or apprenticeship did not generate significant differences. Contusions were the most common injuries (50.2%), followed by wounds (44.4%). These injuries were located in upper limbs (50.5%) and in lower limbs (29.3%). 80.5% of miners were cared for by their colleagues and 50% of them could not work for more than 3 days. Physical sequelae were reported by 19% of the injured miners. DISCUSSION: Many surveys related to accidents in the area of artisanal mining report such high frequency. The unsuitability of tools to jobs to be done is usually raised as one of the major causes of accidents. The lack of differentiation of the tasks carried out in relation to age is another factor explaining the lack of protective effect of seniority as it minimizes the contribution of experience in the worker's safety. The apprenticeship reported is inadequate; it is rather a learning by doing than anything else. That is why it lacks protective effect. Low income combined with precariousness of artisanal mining are likely to explain the low level of work stoppages. CONCLUSION: Tools improvement associated with adequate training seem to be the basis of accident prevention. Availability of suitable medical care should improve artisanal miners' recovery after accidents.

Heavy metal in hair samples of 109 non-industrial (miners) population in Katanga.

INTRODUCTION: This survey aims at proposing reference values of metals in the hair, in the copper-belt (Province of Katanga). MATERIALS AND METHODS: We ran a descriptive study, in an etiologic perspective, on a sample of non-industrial population, constituted by students of the University of Lubumbashi, healthy and without medical treatment (n  = 109). Hair samples were analyzed by Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS). RESULTS: Twenty metals were identified and quantified: aluminium, antimony, silver, barium, cadmium, calcium, cerium, chromium, cobalt, copper, tin, iron, magnesium, manganese, mercury, molybdenum, nickel, lead, vanadium, and zinc. DISCUSSION: Regarding similar surveys ran upon european no-industrial populations, our results are ranging in the same percentiles. They spread out those percentiles only when our results were too close to quantification limits (silver, tin, mercury, nickel and vanadium). For certain metals, in particular aluminium, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, copper, manganese, molybdenum and lead, we have obtained higher contents. Several reasons can explain this specificity: ICP-MS sensitivity, analysis and preparation technique difference, diet difference or simply public health issues… CONCLUSION: Our results are close to others surveys' values. They can be validated as reference values for Katanga general population and used to highlight occupational exposure.

Identification of hazards in the workplaces of Artisanal mining in Katanga.

OBJECTIVE: While artisanal mining takes place in casual framework and with total ignorance of good practices, few studies have focused on the origin of hazards specific to each workplace constitutive of this exploitation facility. Nevertheless, this study is a condition of an efficient occupational health and safety control in this sector. MATERIALS AND METHOD: We took the effort to identify different workplaces, as well as hazards specific to each of them, through the observation and analysis of the tasks, tools and the processes related to their use applied in the Ruashi artisanal mine. RESULTS: The investigated exploitation facility consists of five workplaces: diggers (60%--in charge of mineralized gangue recovery); crushers; washers; hand-made furnace workers (in charge of various treatment processes); and loaders (in charge of packing the obtained material). Beside the risks common to these various workplaces and ensuing notably from the lack of hygiene and working in bad positions, operating in underground galleries, in particular, exposes diggers to the risks connected with collapsing parts of the mine, suffocation, dehydration or fine particles in the breathed air. Crushers are especially exposed to traumatism risks, notably ocular, and loaders are exposed to risks related to handling heavy loads. These risks are connected with the mining processes because, in spite of the similarity of tools, they appear less often in other forms of artisanal exploitation described in literature. It is notable in the case of crushing in sawed gas bottles where ocular trauma risk is decreased. It was also shown that humidification of work surface reduces dust particles emission into the air. CONCLUSIONS: Hazards identification, through a tools and processes description, has the advantage of providing information on reducing the occurrence of these risks. It shows that this reduction is not necessarily a consequence of the activity mechanization degree.