SUNBURY At least six people died on the job in the Central Susquehanna Valley in 2008.

They were among 240 work-related deaths in Pennsylvania last year, a 9 percent increase over 2007, according to a state Department of Labor report released Monday.

The number of people killed at work matched the total from two years ago, the highest number of on-the-job deaths in a decade.

"Any individual's death is tragic, of course," said Mark Stelmack, regional director of the Occupational Safety and Health Authority, "but the overall number of work-related deaths we've had statewide in 2008, and for more than 10 years before that, has been about the same. I don't believe the number of these kinds of fatalities we're seeing now are significantly higher than in previous years."

Two truck drivers were killed in highway accidents on Valley roads in 2008, as statewide road crashes were the leading cause of 47 work-related deaths.

In March 2008, a construction worker, of Mount Union, was run over by a forklift at the Monroe Marketplace building site in Hummels Wharf.

A Sunbury man was crushed between two tractor-trailers at Reinhart Food Service in Coal Township.

An accident at Advanced Concrete Systems in Middleburg killed a Millmont man, when 10,000 tons of concrete fell on him, and a Shamokin man was killed in a mine collapse at Harmony mine, near Mount Carmel.

The miner, an assistant foreman, had been working in an unprotected area.

"When these accidents occur, OSHA investigates whether there are any violations of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, which covers all businesses, except municipalities and public employees," said Stelmack. "If you were to include deaths of government workers, highway workers for example, the number from last year would certainly have exceeded 240 in Pennsylvania."

Gerald L. Perrins Jr., regional economist and branch chief of the Bureau of Labor Statistics in Philadelphia, added, "Second to work-related highway deaths are more than 20 falls to a lower level, being struck by an object or equipment and homicides."

These four types of events accounted for just over half of the workplace fatalities in the commonwealth, Perrins said.

Other frequent events leading to workplace fatalities in the commonwealth in 2008 were being caught in or compressed by equipment or objects (20), pedestrian incidents (19), contact with electric current (13), self-inflicted injuries (12), and non-highway incidents, except rail, air and water (11).

Perrins said two industry sectors made up one-third of the workplace fatalities, construction and warehousing.

"The purpose of releasing these kinds of statistics is to hopefully alert people in these industries to police and improve their safety practices," Perrins added. "We'd like nothing better than to see the number of fatal occupational injuries to go down this year."�