Current Status of Coal Mining and Some Highlights in the 2030 Development Plan of Coal Industry in Vietnam

Coal mining is one of the key mining industries in Vietnam. Coal is also an important fuel formany other industries. Currently, coal mining is mainly concentrated in Quang Ninh coal basin, theproportion of open-pit coal mining and underground mining is quite similar. However, according toDecision 403/QD-Ttg on approving the adjustment of the Vietnam coal industry development plan up to2020, considering the prospects by 2030, the mining output will be from 51 to 54 million tons by year2025 and from 55 to 57 million tons by 2030. In which, the proportion of underground coal mining willincrease gradually compared with that of open-cast mining, specifically, by 2030, the proportion of thelater compared to that of the former will be only 11%. According to this plan, open-pit coal mines havebeen shifting to underground mining technology, due to the increasingly deep conditions of coal seams.The following article will analyze the current status of coal mining in Vietnam and some highlights of thecoal industry development plan to 2030, in order to provide a general picture of Vietnam’s coal industryin the future.

Risk factors for structural and functional changes of the heart in coal industry workers

Introduction. Working conditions at workplaces of coal industry enterprises are characterized by harmful factors exceeding the maximum permissible levels. These include coal-rock dust, noise, vibration, sudden temperature changes, etc. Conversely, unfavourable working conditions increase the risk of developing not only occupational but also work-related diseases. The objective of the study was to study the influence of industrial and common risk factors for cardiovascular diseases on structural and functional changes in the heart in coal industry workers. Material and methods. The study included 130 workers in coal mines in the South of Kuzbass and 78 workers in open coal pits, ranging from 40 to 55 years. The exclusion criteria from the study were the presence of any somatic pathology that could lead to structural and functional changes in the heart. In addition, all subjects underwent echocardiography to determine the structural and functional indices of the heart. Results. Lower values of ejection fraction and longitudinal deformation of the left ventricle were found among the workers in underground coal mining. At the same time, a decrease in the latter was revealed in 19.3% of the miners versus 7.6% of the workers in open coal pits (p=0.025). There was no association between reducing left ventricular longitudinal deformation and common risk factors in coal mine workers, in contrast, to open coal pit workers. The initial manifestations of diastolic dysfunction of the right ventricle in the group of workers of underground coal mining were revealed, which in the correlation analysis had a relationship with the indices of external respiration function. Conclusion. The decrease in the global longitudinal left ventricular myocardial deformation among miners is not associated with the studied common cardiovascular risk factors. Still, it is related to the influence of a complex of unfavourable production factors. Reduced indices of external respiration function affect the initial manifestations of diastolic dysfunction of the right ventricle in the workers of underground coal mining.

Land Subsidence Prediction using Recurrent Neural Networks

In an environment, one of the natural geological hazards is land surface subsidence. There are several reasons for land subsidence among them are underground coal mining and coal fire in subsurface or deformation is primarily measured in terms of change in ground elevation values ( Z-dimension) at different time intervals at identified ground locations. All the conventional and exiting techniques have certain limitations in monitoring and predicting land surface subsidence. In this work, we predict the land subsidence for one year in the interval of twelve days on the datasets collected through a monitoring technique called Modified PSInSAR. The sample datasets contains 14 locations and 67 previous land subsidence value calculated from each location. We train and test predictive models and perform the prediction of the land subsidence using Vanilla and Stacked long short-term memories (LSTMs). Finally, we demonstrates the predicted deformation values of the 14 locations for one year.

Occupational injuries in underground coal mining in Serbia: A case study

BACKGROUND: Mining, especially underground coal mining, has always been a hazardous occupation. Injuries, including those that are fatal, are a major occupational risk that all miners have to face. OBJECTIVE: Despite the fact that all workers are aware of the risks, efforts must be made to increase their safety through the implementation of preventive measures. METHODS: This retrospective study includes injury data from all nine Serbian coal mines over a 16-year period, from 2000 to 2016. All injury data were collected from employee safety and health records. RESULTS: In the analyzed period, a total of 9,273 occupational injuries were recorded at Resavica. The highest number of occupational injuries (over 600) were recorded in 2008 (669), 2004 (651), and 2005 (603). The data shows that almost one fifth of the total number of occupational injuries, or 20.74%, occurred during the said three years. On average, 493.06 minor, 51.12 severe, and 1.29 fatal injuries occurred each year. Every day there were 1.29 minor occupational injuries and every seven days there was one severe injury. CONCLUSIONS: Despite indications that there is a connection between some of the variables and the number of injuries, the general conclusion is that injuries are accidental and unpredictable. The high percentages of injuries are due to the organization of work and the age or qualification structure of the staff and, of course, are the consequence of likelihood –the greater the number of workers, the greater the likelihood of injury. However, the present study showed that some measures can be taken to increase occupational safety and reduce the number of injuries.