Mine safety in coal mines, which in turn can initiate more extensive coal dust explosions. For this reason, rock dusts such as limestone dust are spread throughout coal mines to diminish the chances of coal dust explosions as well as to limit the extent of potential explosions, in a process known as rock dusting. Coal dust explosions can also begin independently of methane gas explosions. Frictional heat and sparks generated by mining equipment can ignite both methane gas and coal dust. For this reason, water is often used to cool rock-cutting sites. Miners utilize equipment strong enough to break through extremely hard
Lakshmi Mittal government said it wanted to renegotiate the 2004 sale to ArcelorMittal. Employees of Mittal have accused him of "slave labour" conditions after multiple fatalities in his mines. During December 2004, twenty-three miners died in explosions in his mines in Kazakhstan caused by faulty gas detectors. In 2002 Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price obtained a letter written by Tony Blair to the Romanian Government in support of Mittal's LNM steel company, which was in the process of bidding to buy Romania's state-owned steel industry. This revelation caused controversy, because Mittal had given £125,000 to the British Labour Party the previous year.