The International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) released a report that benchmarks the 2025 safety performance of its 26 member companies, which represent approximately one third of the global mining and metals industry.
ICMM members are constantly looking for ways to make their operations safer and to eliminate fatalities towards a goal of zero harm. To support this, ICMM compiles, analyses and publishes the safety data provided annually by company members. The report analyses fatalities from ICMM company members based on the cause and provides safety performance metrics by country and company.
Tragically, 39 people from ICMM company members lost their lives at work in 2025. This compares to 43 fatalities recorded in 2024 and 35 in 2023. Of the 39 fatalities, 13 were caused by two catastrophic events which involved fall of ground and an inrush/outburst event.
Fall of ground and mobile equipment were the most frequent recorded hazards in 2025 with 10 fatalities attributed to each. Member operations in South America and Africa had the highest number of fatalities with 11 fatalities recorded in each region. 14 of the 26 ICMM members reported zero fatalities.
While fatalities fell slightly this year, the broader trend since 2021 remains deeply concerning. “The re-emergence of catastrophic incidents is a stark reminder that critical controls are still failing too often. Addressing this starts with culture. We must strengthen safety cultures and ensure critical controls are consistently identified, implemented and verified. That is why we encourage the entire mining and metals industry to share lessons openly and regularly, maintain a commitment to safety at the highest levels of leadership, and use ICMM’s publicly available resources to help prevent future tragedies,” commented Rohitesh Dhawan, President and CEO, ICMM.
ICMM began collating and publishing data on members’ safety performance in 2012.
Alex Shishlo, Editor in Chief of the European Bureau, Rough&Polished
