Managing Major Hazards: The lessons of the Moura Mine disaster

by Andrew Hopkins

Overview

Many organisations live with hazards that have the potential to cause disaster. This was the case at Moura underground coal mine in Central Queensland, where 11 men died in an explosion in 1994.

Andrew Hopkins shows that the explosion was the result of organisational failure, and uses it to draw lessons about managing major hazards. He argues that there are always tell-tale signs of impending disaster, and that organisations need to find ways of gathering this information and reacting to it appropriately. The Moura story also demonstrates the need to move responsibility for risk management up the corporate hierarchy to ensure that it is not overshadowed by production pressures. Otherwise disasters will repeat themselves in horrifyingly similar ways.

Managing Major Hazards is a gripping story and essential reading for occupational health and safety professionals, executives working in hazardous industries, policy makers, and readers interested in risk management and disaster studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367718695
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	03/31/2021
Series:	Studies in Society
Edition description:	2nd ed.
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	5.44(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Andrew Hopkins is senior lecturer in Sociology at the Australian National University and has published extensively in the area of occupational health and safety. He is author of Making Safety Work and co-author of Working for Change.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments, Pronunciation note, Abbreviations, Glossary, 1. Introduction, 2. Perspectives on disaster, 3. The communication system, 4. Cultural impediments to recognising danger: the need to structure decision making, 5. The failure of management responsibility, 6. Auditing, 7. Was Moura safety-conscious?, 8. Production before safety?, 9. The role of BHP, 10. The 'safety pays' argument, 11. The regulatory system, 12. Conclusion, Appendix 1: Company and management hierarchies, Appendix 2: Australian mine disasters, References, Index