The government's top work safety agency is to dispatch
inspection teams to help improve workplace safety at coal mines
across the country in the wake of a series of accidents that have
claimed dozens of lives.
The month-long investigation, which gets under way this week,
will involve seven teams being sent to 14 major coal production
bases to supervise the implementation of work safety measures, the
general office of the Work Safety Committee under the State Council
said on Tuesday.
The 10-member teams, which comprise officials from the State
Administration of Work Safety (SAWS) and State Administration of
Coal Mine Safety, will head to provinces that regularly report
fatal coal mine accidents, including Shanxi, Guizhou and
Yunnan.
According to the latest figures from the SAWS, in the first 10
months of this year, 3,069 miners were killed in 1,920 coal mining
accidents.
However, the death toll is down 19 percent on the same period in
2006, and the number of accidents has fallen 20.2 percent, the
figures showed.
Although mining companies have been urged to improve work safety
awareness and introduce measures to protect workers, fatal
accidents continue to be reported.
On Monday, 12 miners were trapped following a gas explosion in a
mine in Henan Province. As of Tuesday, just one body had been
recovered.
Four days earlier, 35 miners were killed by a gas leak at the
Qunli Colliery in Nayong county, Guizhou Province.
The Work Safety Committee said the main task of the inspection
teams will be to check with local governments and mine operators to
ensure the more than 17,000 existing and potential problems
identified in earlier inspections had been addressed or
rectified.
In the case of long-term, large-scale problems, the teams will
press those involved to provide precise deadlines and details of
how the matters will be dealt with.
The teams will also visit mines that have been ordered to close
or had their licenses suspended until required improvements are
carried out to ensure their compliance.
Last month, 11 people were killed and nine others were reported
missing following accidents at two mines in Chongqing Municipality
and Jiangxi Province, both of which had previously been ordered to
close.
Li Yizhong, minister of the SAWS, said industrial safety must
remain a priority, as the number of accidents was completely
unacceptable.
"Accidents continue to happen, so local government departments
must deal appropriately with cases of malpractice and close down
those mines that are operating illegally," he said in a video
conference last Monday.
(China Daily November 15, 2007)