Mines Safety and Accident Communication System for underground mines

All mines have safety problems and underground mines tend to be thought of as more dangerous than surface mines. Safety communication systems typically found in Zambian underground mines include hardened telephone systems coupled with the Locked-Bell System, mine radios, leaky feeder systems and on a limited basis, digital systems. These systems depend upon a hard-wired support and if communications cable(s) become damaged or severed at any point, all communications in and out of an underground mine are disrupted. Additionally, fire, explosion or water inundation is likely to compromise communications cables and as such they cannot be relied upon for emergency communication purposes. These challenges lead to safety communication underground difficult and sometimes results in fatality when an accident happens. In this study, therefore, communications software is developed for underground mines to improve safety communication. An accident reporting and logging database based system is designed which shall incorporate the digital version of Form 55 used at Ministry of Mines and Minerals Development in Zambia. The communication software is developed using Real Basic programming language which is an object-oriented invent driven Language and Structured Query Language (SQL), a database management design and maintenance language. The communications software was developed and tested on a virtual and actual server-client networks i.e. it provided a two-way texting and chatting system, which is useful in relaying of information between the surface and teams working underground. The clients to be deployed underground will have a unique ID which can be referenced to give details on the locations. This can further ease the search for the miners in case of total loss of communication and accidents. The Mines Safety and Accident Communication System (MISACOMS) Reporting and Logging system was developed and tested on various operating systems. The digital format of Form 55 provided an ease way of logging, reporting and cross referencing accident data as it is stored in a database.