A miner who used to be at that mine said on H & C, said that those violations can often be little petty things like signs being put too high and such.
It is not unusual for a mine to get this many MINOR infractions. You know OCHA goes to the extreme. BUT the question is, how many of these were actually Major infractions? How many actually had to do with this accident.
If none of them had to do with this disaster, it's a moot point.
I was listening to Talk Radio this morning and they had a caller that was claimed to be familiar with the violations at this mine. He said none of them were serious in nature. Another caller suggested that if there were serious violations that should have kept workers out of the mine, then why didn't they shut it down?
I wondered about that -- I know from my mechanic that he not only has to have a certain number of fire extinguishers around (OK and he actually has more), but that they have to be a specific number of inches from the floor (some of his were a couple of inches too low -- well, he's short!) -- and he got cited.
I saw similar interviews with safety experts. They said the federal government inspects all mines quarterly. They go over the places with a fine-tooth comb and many, many violations were due to paperwork deficiencies, etc.