Sectors

What are the OHS obligations in mining?

In mining (NACE 05, 07, 08, 09) 42 of the 44 activity codes — 95% — are highly hazardous, and not a single code is less hazardous. SGK recorded 18,116 accidents, 65 deaths and 40 occupational disease cases in these divisions in 2025: 2.2 diseases per 1,000 accidents against a national average of 1.2.

The highest hazard density of all sector views

The hazard class communiqué annex lists 44 activity codes for the mining divisions (05 coal and lignite, 07 metal ores, 08 other mining and quarrying, 09 support activities). Forty-two are highly hazardous and two are hazardous; none is less hazardous. That 95% share is the highest among all sector views.

The SGK 2025 table

NACE divisionAccidentsDeathsOccupational diseases
05 · Mining of coal and lignite11,076927
07 · Mining of metal ores2,541131
08 · Other mining and quarrying3,247379
09 · Mining support service activities1,25263
Sector total18,1166540

The sector carries 2.4% of the country's accidents and 3.3% of its deaths. Severity varies sharply by division: quarrying records 37 deaths in 3,247 accidents (11.4 per thousand) while coal and lignite record 9 deaths in 11,076 accidents (0.8 per thousand). Coal and lignite lead occupational disease reports with 27 cases.

What the employer has to put in place

  • General obligation of the employer and establishment of occupational health and safety services.
  • Risk assessment, control, measurement and research — environmental measurement is continuous work in mining.
  • Emergency plans, firefighting, first aid and evacuation.
  • Health surveillance, which the density of occupational disease reports pushes to the front.
  • Informing, training and consulting workers.
  • Recording and reporting occupational accidents and diseases.
  • A safety report or major accident prevention policy document where a major accident hazard exists.
  • Suspension of work — the law defines a separate enforcement route for mines where a risk to life is identified.

Verify your code

Because every mining activity but two sits in the highly hazardous class, the discussion about obligations usually ends with the code itself. Verify yours with the hazard class query; all 44 codes and the division-by-division accident table are in the mining sector view. For the national comparison see Türkiye OHS statistics.

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