Australia’s QCoal says workers sent home after death at coking coal mine

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia’s QCoal said on Saturday that workers at its Byerwen coking coal mine in Queensland state had been sent home pending a probe into the death of a worker at the site on Thursday.

The man’s death comes after another worker died at the mine, about 840km (530 miles) from state capital Brisbane, on Aug. 3.

Brisbane-based QCoal runs the open-cut mine in the Bowen Basin, of which it owns 85%, in a joint venture with Japan’s JFE Steel Corp.

A QCoal spokesperson said in a statement that the company “decided to send the workforce home on full pay pending initial outcome of current investigations” into the latest fatality.

On Friday, Queensland’s mining regulator suspended the use of heavy vehicles at the mine after the incident involving two vehicles that caused the worker’s death.

“QCoal has chosen to suspend operations at the mine, but we’ve taken this extra step to ensure activities involving heavy vehicles cannot take place until our inspector is satisfied that it is safe to do so,” Resources Safety & Health Queensland CEO Rob Djukic said in a statement.

Djukic said it was “disheartening and concerning to see a second fatality in less than a month at Byerwen”, adding that an investigation by the agency was underway.

The worker who died this week was employed by contractor Macmahon Holdings, the Australian Broadcasting Corp reported.

The Byerwen mine produces up to 10 million tonnes of hard coking coal, a steel-making ingredient, each year, according to QCoal.

(Reporting by Sam McKeith in Sydney; Editing by Kim Coghill)