Emergency Preparedness

The following is intended to assist mine management personnel and others by providing information which may facilitate in the development of mine emergency response plans for application at mines in British Columbia.

A Mine Emergency Response Plan (MERP) is a management tool for preparing company personnel to assume the various jobs, tasks and duties which are necessary to cope with a mine emergency operation. It can be applied to a single mine or to a group of mines.

The MERP can be used by all mine operators to develop a standard operations package for coping with all emergency situations, by organizing and preparing existing personnel to function and respond effectively. It includes the traditional and required training of mine rescue teams, but it has a wider sphere.

A mine emergency can have a traumatic effect on everybody at the site, including management. The establishment of a MERP ensures that supervisory and other personnel know exactly how to perform tasks needed to control an emergency situation.

In particular, emergency response procedures

• are the guidelines and plans for personnel in place, in order that
  they may respond quickly and properly to an emergency condition.
• provide a common set of practices that govern the diverse and
  varied activities needed for an orderly response.
• help mining officials implement strategies for early containment
  and control of a problem.
• establish a common set of rules for training all emergency
  response personnel.
• set the criteria for the company's emergency response planning.

Development of the Mine Emergency Response Plan is critical to a company's effort to contain an emergency condition before the problem develops into an out-of-control situation.

CLICK HERE for a list of MERP Guidelines