Electrical equipment in hazardous areas the participation of operations, maintenance, safety, electrical and instrumentation professionals, the use of process diagrams and material flows, MSDS and any pertinent documents, information and knowledge to determine the hazards and their extent and the countermeasures to be employed. Area classification documentations are reviewed and updated to reflect process changes. Soon after the introduction of electric power into coal mines, it was discovered that lethal explosions could be initiated by electrical equipment such as lighting, signals, or motors. The hazard of fire damp or methane accumulation in mines was well known by the time electricity was introduced, along with the
United Kingdom mines and quarries regulation in 1910 total increase of 924 in the number of persons employed. Fatal accidents resulted in 1900 in 127 deaths; compared with 1899 there was an increase of To in the number of deaths, and, as Professor Le Neve Foster pointed out, this exceeded the average death-rate of underground workers at mines under the Coal Mines Acts during the previous ten years, in spite of the quarrier " having nothing to fear from explosions of gas, underground fires or inundations." He attributed the difference to a lax observance of precautions which might in time be remedied by stringent administration of the law.