Harding Memorial Lecture: failures below ground

Overview

Sir Harold Harding was one of three members serving on the panel investigating the Aberfan colliery waste landslide. This tragedy, taking the lives of 28 adults and 116 children, remains in our conscious memory, but do we recall the cause and the lessons the catastrophe should have taught us? Do we really understand why some projects fail and subsequently expend considerable time and resources investigating, disputing and defending “positions”, or resisting honest and open discussion in circumstances that might have been avoided? And win or lose even in a minor dispute, any resulting investigation can be disruptive, intrusive, and expensive, but ultimately teach the industry as a whole, very little.

In this talk, Mike looks at some of the data related to the root causes of failures in underground projects, considers his personal experience and appraises whether we are honestly capturing the real issues behind these events and if we could do more to disseminate lessons. Two failures are examined as representative examples, one very well-known to the industry.