Quarry fined €23,000 for death of worker

A Paphos company engaged in limestone extraction has been fined €23,000 for failure to implement safety and health regulations in the workplace leading to the death of an employee and the endangering of other workers.

The company Gennadios Theologos & Sons (Skyropoiia) Ltd was criminally prosecuted over the 2019 accident at the Paphos quarry near Androlykos village when the foreign worker aged 40, a father of two, was killed while operating heavy machinery and a pile of rocks and soil collapsed, crushing him underneath.

The criminal action was brought by the department of labour inspection and as a result, the Paphos court just now fined the company €23,000 for failing to follow the minimum standards of safety in the field of mining or quarrying and did not employ enough qualified and trained people to have the job done safely.

The court also cited the company’s failure to take the appropriate measures for the design, construction and maintenance of the workplace with the appropriate support and configuration of steps or structures to avoid the risk of a landslide or rockslide, which in this case had resulted in the operator of the excavator being fatally injured.

It was also cited for failure to ensure the timely revision of the safety and health document, failure to ensure supervision during all limestone extraction operations by a person qualified and capable of doing so, and failure to act before resumption excavations. The company had also failed to appoint a suitable administrator who would provide for the safety of the people employed there.

The company had also failed to extract the material at the top of the slope but had carried out mining work at the bottom of the slope, creating further dangerous conditions resulting in the detachment of a large volume of rocks.