Iran: Who Is Responsible For The Tabas Mine Disaster? – OpEd
Following the explosion on September 21 at a coal mine in the city of Tabas, located in South Khorasan province in eastern Iran, at least 52 workers lost their lives. According to local authorities, the explosion occurred at 9:00 PM on Saturday due to a methane gas emission in one of the coal mine tunnels. Jawad Qanaat, the governor of the province, told local media that methane levels in these two sections of the mine were extremely high.
The parents of Mohammad Javad Ghasemi, one of the miners who died in the explosion, shared their account of the loss of their son:
"Apparently, there was gas in the tunnel. My son, as his colleagues reported, warned the other workers: 'Don’t go into block C, there's gas, it’s dangerous.' Then the mine shift leader came with a piece of paper, saying those who didn’t want to enter the tunnel should sign and leave to collect their wages. These poor people came from faraway cities like Tabriz, Gorgan, or Mashhad. They had come to provide for their families. What else could they do if they didn’t work? My son told them that their lives were worth more than the salary they were being offered, but they still took the risk. My son was in one of the blocks, just attaching wagons to send them up. I don’t know what happened to him at the moment of the explosion, only God knows. What I do know is that there was no safety in that block, none at all."
Mehdi Taremi, a forward for Iran’s national soccer team and Inter Milan, reacted to the tragedy by stating that he was under pressure not to speak out: "You don’t know the pressure on social media activists not to write, or how to write about these issues. Hundreds of times, the blade of self-censorship threatens our words. What more can be said about the oppression of the miners? These workers are strangers in their own country—lives cut short; lights extinguished."
The member of parliament for Qaenat district said: "The Minister of Cooperatives, Labor, and Social Welfare confirmed that the gas should have been evacuated from the mine, but this was not done. Two days earlier, workers had reported a gas leak, but it wasn’t addressed. The authorities bear primary responsibility for this incident." He added that the lack of regular inspections was another cause of the disaster, as even the minister admitted he had not received authorization to hire an inspector (source: "Chand Saniyeh" Telegram channel controlled by the regime, September 24, 2023).
Ali Moqaddas-Zadeh, head of the Labor Council for South Khorasan, also stated: "We don’t have methane sensors. If we had had one, as they do in the central mine, this incident could have been prevented" (source: "Chand Saniyeh" Telegram, September 23, 2023).
Alizadeh, head of the parliamentary commission on industry and mines, said: "It appears that these mines, especially this one, didn’t even meet minimal safety standards. Even basic communication systems weren’t in place, and if they had been, workers might have evacuated in time..." (Iranian news channel, September 22, 2023).
Each year, many miners are buried alive in Iranian mines. "Recently, an explosion occurred in Shazand, where several workers were trapped under the rubble, and it took two weeks to recover the bodies" (Entekhab news site, September 22, 2023).
In 2021, only 23% of Iranian mines had health, safety, and environment (HSE) units, which falls far short of international standards. The rate of fatal accidents in Iran is several times higher than the global average (sources: "Farheekhtegan" and "Ham-Mihan" newspapers, September 23, 2023).
The importance of the mines and the role of the regime in power
The negligence of the authorities toward the workers is all the more shocking considering that, according to Ali Akbar Rahimi, governor of South Khorasan, "76% of the country’s coal comes from this region, where 8 to 10 large companies, including the Madanjoo Company, operate" (Reuters, September 22, 2023).
Iranian mines, among the country’s most valuable resources, are largely controlled by foundations tied to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and corrupt elites who brutally exploit the workers.
The Tabas mine is a subsidiary of Golgohar Mining and Industrial Holding, which is itself affiliated with Sepah Bank, controlled by the IRGC. This bank is owned by the Foundation of the Oppressed (Bonyad-e Mostazafan), the second-largest economic institution in Iran after the National Iranian Oil Company, and its top members are essentially IRGC commanders.
As for the miners' wages, they are meager. According to Ali Moqaddas-Zadeh, Madanjoo workers earn 12 million tomans per month, while the poverty line is estimated at 30 million tomans (source: "Fararu" website, affiliated with the regime, September 12, 2024).
If miners are deprived of a simple sensor to detect methane danger in the mine, while in the same city billions of dollars have been spent on a nuclear facility serving only the war policies of the Iranian regime, it underscores a deep dysfunction. And this doesn’t even include the billions spent on proxy forces in the region. According to Reuters, the personal fortune of Ali Khamenei, the Iranian dictator, is legendary and is estimated to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Additionally, according to the current Speaker of Parliament, 4% of the population controls most of the country’s wealth, while the rest struggle to secure enough food for the night.