Falls of Ground is one of the highest causes of incidents, accidents and fatal injuries in our mines today.
These falls of ground may occur as soon as the face is exposed after blasting or after machine cutting. The falls of ground can also occur after support has been installed.
There are many reasons why these falls occur before and after supporting of the face. It is therefore important to support the exposed face as soon as possible to prevent the falls of ground. It is also very important to support the face with the correct support products and to support the face as designed and required by the mining engineers.
The possible reasons for falls of ground, possible support methods and the products available will be discussed in this presentation. In typical conventional narrow vein stoping operations, the use of conventional temporary support components to offer some support to workers, whilst the permanent and generally more elaborate support system gets installed or constructed, still results in injuries to people.