Rabat – Less than a week after the coal mine accident in which three workers lost their lives to CO2 intoxication in the city of Jerada, Morocco’s government has announced it will be holding a meeting next Thursday to discuss workers protection law.
In a statement issued today, the government indicated that Thursday’s meeting will mainly aim to discuss passing three decrees, including one on the protection of workers from the exposure to toxic gas known as “asbestos dust.”
The third decree the government is set to discuss concerns the protection of workers from the dangers of fuel and other substances with fuel concentration of more than 1%, the statement added.
The announcement of the meeting comes against the backdrop of a number of work accidents in Moroccan mines in the past month.
On August 16, local authorities in Jerada, a city in Western Morocco, announced the death of three workers from carbon dioxide in a coal mine.
Jerada is infamous for this type of incident. In 2017 and 2018, similar accidents became the center of public attention, especially after the collapse of an unregulated coal mine resulted in the death of a 25-year-old worker.
The death toll of Jerada coal mines continued to rise throughout the same year, with similar accidents claiming the lives of three coal miners when zinc and lead mining shafts collapsed in a coal mine.
Reacting to these tragedies, Morocco’s government issued an order in 2019 to Jerada authorities to close around 2000 abandoned and illegal coal mines in the region.
The government had first outlawed working in Jerada’s coal mines back in 1998 due to the high frequency of accidents. However, the coal mines were later reopened for illegal exploitation.
Read Also: Three People Die of CO2 Asphyxiation in Coal Mining Well in Jerada, Morocco
