The Lessons From The Yallourn Inquiry

Tim Sullivan, Principal, Pells Sullivan Meynink Pty Ltd

The northern batter of the Yallourn mine collapsed suddenly on the 14th November 2007. The collapse had dramatic consequences with loss of 20% of Victoria’s power generation capacity and a cost to the mine measured in hundreds of millions of dollars. Because this was a surprise to government and because of the consequences, the government of Victoria decided to hold and Inquiry into the causes and appointed a Mining Warden for the period of the Inquiry. Like all great failures there are lessons to be learnt and this presentation presents the results of the Inquiry and the lessons learnt.

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