Long-Term Czech Experiences with Rockbursts with Applicability to Today’s Underground Coal Mines

In the Czech part of the Upper Silesian Coal Basin, there are records of rockbursts dating back as early as the beginning of the last century. Since then, 450 such rockbursts of varying intensities have been recorded. This article is a vignette of our recent opinion on rockburst issues in the Ostrava–Karvina Coalfield. It comments on the main causes of rockbursts and summarises the strategic measures taken against them. It highlights the main mistakes in mine design in rock mass that lead to a rockburst risk and supports these arguments with illustrative examples from Czech hard coal mining. Long-term analyses of the causes of rockbursts provide recommendations on proper mining techniques for excavation of a rock mass with rockburst risk.