Metal/nonmetal mining accounts for 645 of 1,205 mining deaths since 2000

Of the 1,205 fatalities recorded in the archive from 2000 to the present, 645 occurred at metal and nonmetal operations and 560 at coal operations. Metal/nonmetal therefore represents just over half of the modern death record, edging out a coal sector that has historically dominated public attention to mine safety.

The counts come from MSHA Form 7000-1, which classifies each incident by mine type. Work location adds some texture: 470 deaths are coded to strip, quarry, or open pit operations and 444 to underground work, with the remainder split across mill and preparation plants (185), surface areas at underground mines (50), and dredges (40).

State totals still lean toward the coal regions, with West Virginia (207) and Kentucky (144) leading, but Texas (70) and Nevada (52) appear high on the list as well, reflecting the metal/nonmetal and aggregate activity that drives the sector's share.

What these figures cannot show is per-worker risk. A count of deaths tells you where fatalities happened, not how dangerous each sector is relative to the hours worked in it. Metal/nonmetal may simply employ more people or log more working hours than coal, which would produce more deaths at an equal or lower rate. Answering the risk question would require employment and hours worked by sector, which these fatality counts do not include. Treat the 645 to 560 split as a fair measure of where the modern fatality burden falls, not as a statement that one sector is more hazardous per worker than the other.

The underlying records are available per mine and per operator through the archive, so the sector split can be traced back to the individual reports that compose it.