The country's safety authorities yesterday pledged to improve
mine safety standards further by upgrading gas treatment and
closing more illegal mines.
"We will make mine safety our top priority and reduce major gas
accidents substantially this year," Minister of the State
Administration of Work Safety Li Yizhong said at an annual national
meeting on work safety in Beijing.
This year more low-gas coalmines will be equipped with
monitoring systems to prevent accidents, he said. All the high-gas
and 69.3 percent of the low-gas mines had such systems by the end
of 2006.
For the third successive year, the government will allot 3
billion yuan ($375 million) to support safety technology innovation
in key State-owned mines that account for 53 percent of the annual
coal output.
Li conceded that though there were "obvious" weak links in work
safety. "Driven by a strong market demand, some small mines,
fireworks plants, construction teams and bus companies recklessly
engage in illegal production.
"And some local governments' monitoring of such activities (and
punitive action) has been weak."
But the country's work safety record was relatively good last
year, he said, when fewer people were killed in industrial
accidents. In real terms, 112,822 people died, a drop of 11.2
percent over 2005.
A crucial year
This year is crucial in the battle against illegal and unsafe
coalmines, Li said.
By April 2006, the country closed 5,931 coalmines that had
failed to meet the statutory safety standards. After that, the
battle shifted to coalmines that destroy natural resources, pollute
the environment or violate industrial policies. About 5,000 such
coalmines will be closed by the end of this year, Li said.
He said the country would try its best to reduce the number of
deaths in accidents by 1.3 percent and control the death rate per
million tons of coal produced at 1.923, a drop of 5.8 percent over
2006.
The death rate per million tons of coal produced in 2006 was
2.041, a drop of 27.4 percent over 2005.
To achieve the goal, the administration will expedite the pace
of legislation on work safety.
To make the rescue teams more efficient, the administration this
year will build 26 national-level rescue bases and 20 bases to
counter dangerous chemical accidents.
And about 70 percent provincial-level and 50 percent
prefecture-level areas will set up three-tier emergency management
and rescue command system.
(China Daily January 25, 2007)