A fatal pit collapse occurred at Kassanda mine after heavy rainfall triggered unstable soil failure. The risk was known, foreseeable, and previously identified, raising concerns about why response protocols were not activated in time.
Was there a breakdown in monitoring, risk ownership, communication, mine operations flaws or safety governance?
I invite risk professionals to discuss what typically fails in such cases and which controls are most critical for preventing similar incidents.
This is just another tragic example of the ineffective implementation of project risk management. We have all struggled with risk owners who, in spite of the strong justification provided, refused to implement risk responses in a timely manner.
Many times this ties back to the overall risk attitude of the organization and the openness to hearing bad or potentially bad news.
And if reputational damage and litigation costs are lower than the costs of properly implementing safety measures or (in extreme cases) cancelling projects, leadership and shareholders are likely to err on the side of profit over protection.
Kiron
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3 replies by Akin Fadare, Mounir Ashour, and anonymous
This is just another tragic example of the ineffective implementation of project risk management. We have all struggled with risk owners who, in spite of the strong justification provided, refused to implement risk responses in a timely manner.
Many times this ties back to the overall risk attitude of the organization and the openness to hearing bad or potentially bad news.
And if reputational damage and litigation costs are lower than the costs of properly implementing safety measures or (in extreme cases) cancelling projects, leadership and shareholders are likely to err on the side of profit over protection.
Kiron
THANK YOU Saving Changes...
Anonymous
Jan 05, 2026 7:37 AM
Replying to Kiron Bondale
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Akin -
This is just another tragic example of the ineffective implementation of project risk management. We have all struggled with risk owners who, in spite of the strong justification provided, refused to implement risk responses in a timely manner.
Many times this ties back to the overall risk attitude of the organization and the openness to hearing bad or potentially bad news.
And if reputational damage and litigation costs are lower than the costs of properly implementing safety measures or (in extreme cases) cancelling projects, leadership and shareholders are likely to err on the side of profit over protection.
This is just another tragic example of the ineffective implementation of project risk management. We have all struggled with risk owners who, in spite of the strong justification provided, refused to implement risk responses in a timely manner.
Many times this ties back to the overall risk attitude of the organization and the openness to hearing bad or potentially bad news.
And if reputational damage and litigation costs are lower than the costs of properly implementing safety measures or (in extreme cases) cancelling projects, leadership and shareholders are likely to err on the side of profit over protection.
Kiron
Thank you Kiron. This is thoughtful submission. Saving Changes...
Project Manager| AWR Development (BD) Ltd. Cox's Bazer , Bangladesh
Thank you for raising this, Akin Fadare.
This is a sobering reminder that many fatal incidents are not caused by unknown risks, but by known risks that were not acted on in time.
From experience, the most common failures tend to be:
👉 Weak risk ownership — everyone sees the risk, but no one has clear authority to stop operations
👉 Delayed escalation — warning signs exist, yet decisions are postponed under production pressure
👉 Control fatigue — monitoring systems exist, but alerts are normalized or ignored
The most critical controls are clear stop-work authority, real-time monitoring tied to decision triggers, and a safety culture where acting early is rewarded, not questioned.
Program Manager| HARPER SRLSanto Domingo / Distrito Nacional, Dominican Republic
Tragic cases like this usually fail long before the incident itself. The risk was identified, which tells us monitoring existed, but ownership and decision authority likely broke down. When no one has clear stop-work power, warnings become background noise. Add production pressure and weak safety governance, and known risks get tolerated instead of acted on. The most critical controls are clear risk ownership, predefined action triggers tied to environmental conditions, and leadership that treats early shutdowns as responsible decisions, not overreactions. Lot of disasters happen when people see the risk but feel unable to really act on it. Saving Changes...
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