Safety risk assessment of Iran’s dimension stone quarries (Exploited by diamond wire cutting method)

• The high rate of incidents in Iran’s quarries, is the necessity of safety risk assessment.
• This paper develops a new approach of safety risk assessment and adjustment in quarries.
• Traffic accidents, cutting wire rupture and rock fall were the three greatest risk resources.
• Total amounts of risk was 31.8 and 11.7 before and after adjustment, respectively.
• Total risk adjustment risk ratio of 63.3%, shows the importance of risk management.

Mining is among the most hazardous activities all around the world, being always accompanied with different incidents, injuries, loss of lives, and property damages. Dimension stone quarrying constitutes a big portion of mining activities in Iran owing to 1379 different quarries with twenty thousand employees. Therefore, risk assessment is an important consideration in these mines and it should be accompanied with adjustment approaches. During this study, Judging from filled out questionnaire by relevant experts, dangerous incidents of quarries were recognized and safety risk of them has been assessed. Incidents risk ranking showed that traffic accidents, cutting wire rupture and rock fall were in order of magnitude the greatest risk sources or reasons, respectively. To manage the risks, some regulations were followed to adjust safety risks. Machinery or man fall from bench crest and rock fall were the most influential incidents due to these regulations. The average safety risk of quarrying has calculated as 31.8 and 11.7 out of 100 before and after adjustment. This amount of total risk reduction (63.3%) showed the importance of risk management.