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MINES ACT (NORTHERN IRELAND) 1969 - SECT 70



70.(1) Subject to the provisions of this section, it shall not be lawful for
more than one hundred persons to be employed below ground in a mine of coal in
circumstances in which, if there were a fire in any length of intake airway
through which the air supply to all of those persons passes, none of them
would be able to withdraw from the mine without either passing through the
fire or following a way out to the surface in which, or in any part of which,
the air would or might become so contaminated by the products of combustion
generated by the fire as to prejudice seriously the possibility of the
withdrawal of persons through it in safety, unless

(a)that length of intake airway and everything with which it is equipped are
so constructed or treated, and so maintained and used, that that length of
airway is, so far as can be reasonably foreseen, free from the risk that any
fire that might break out therein would so develop as to prevent or endanger
the withdrawal from the mine of those persons; or

(b)means are provided for securing that, in the event of a fire in that length
of intake airway, those persons will be able to withdraw in safety.

In computing, for the purposes of this subsection, the number of persons
employed in such circumstances as aforesaid, a person going to or from his
working place at the beginning or end of his shift shall, unless it is
otherwise prescribed (either generally or in relation to any particular
circumstances), be left out of account.

Subs.(2) rep. by SLR 1976

(3) Regulations may provide for exempting from the provisions of subsection
(1) any prescribed class of mines of coal and the Ministry may, by notice
served on the manager of a particular mine of coal, exempt the mine or any
part thereof from those provisions.

Subs.(4) rep. by SLR 1976; SR 1980/333

Ss.71, 72 rep. by SR 1980/333


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