By taking the mine fatalities data from Peru’s Mining Ministry and chopping the figures supplied into six month chunks, we get the following chart of how many deaths have been reported in mines in Peru since the year 2000:
This type of data is always going to be statistically choppy, but the moving average line shows a drop in the rate of fatal accidents in Peru over the last couple of years. We know mining is a dangerous occupation, we know that anything above zero is not a good result and we know Peru’s mines vary from some of the safest and highest standards in the world to some of the poorest, depending on who you work for and what your boss is like, but at least the tendency is going in the right direction and at a time when more people are being employed by mining companies, too.