Soaring demand for energy on the mainland and pursuit of profits by coal producers are to blame for lax safety standards and a rise in fatal accidents at coal mines, according to a top industrial safety expert and government officials. "Many coal mines would rather not contribute a portion of their revenue to shore up safety systems," said Zhou Xinquan , a professor from the Chinese Mining University, who also serves on an expert committee of the State Administration of Work Safety.
Small, illegal mines are notoriously dangerous workplaces, but some state-run mines also have poor safety standards.
"State-run mines are better than those privately operated one-man shops in terms of safety equipment ...but you still cannot say all of them are doing their best to raise safety standards to the national level," Professor Zhou said.
The death toll in China's small mines translates into 12 fatalities for every million tonnes of coal produced, while in state-run mines the fatality rate is one miner for every million tonnes. In the United States, the rate is 0.03.
China's produced 1.6 billion tonnes of coal last year, making it the world's biggest producer.
Official statistics show more than 4,800 miners were killed in mining-related accidents last year. In the first nine months of this year, 4,153 miners were killed.
Professor Zhou conceded that some accidents were inevitable as the country's rapid economic growth stoked strong demand for coal, a main source of energy. "The number of accidents usually peaks when the per-capita GDP of a country reaches between US$1,000 and $3,000," he said. "We are now in this phrase of development."
He said it would take China decades to reach the safety levels of developed countries.
Most workers in private and state-run mines were poor farmers with little sense of safety.
The central government has launched a national work safety campaign to educate miners and introduce safer practices, but Professor Zhou said it was hard to make improvements overnight.
"One training class cannot change a rural worker who has neither skills nor safety awareness into a professional miner," he said.
Many mines, including the Daping Mine in Henan where at least 60 miners died in an explosion on Wednesday, operate continuously, partly to avoid costly safety procedures. Mine operators are required to undertake safety inspections after holidays.
"Coal mines do not usually take vacations ... we work continuously. If we stop production for holidays we need to go through the safety inspections again," an administrator at the Daping Mine said.
Sun Huashan , vice-director of the State Administration of Work Safety, admitted safety procedures were neglected as many coal mines were running at overcapacity because of demand.
Note that they include road accidents in statistics.
Friday, October 22, 2004
Workplace carnage claims 15 lives an hour More than 70pc of incidents blamed on dangerous practices
Workplace accidents on the mainland claimed a staggering 15 lives an hour during the first three-quarters of the year, State Administration of Work Safety statistics show. The total of 98,809 deaths in the first nine months of the year represented a minimal reduction - of 0.25 per cent - compared with the same period last year. However, that figure includes more than 77,000 deaths in road accidents, because China considers its roads part of its industrial system.
The only substantial change was in the total number of accidents, which dropped by almost 17 per cent to 607,429 - indicating there has been an increase in the number of mass fatalities in accidents.
The administration, the national work-safety watchdog, said the number of accidents involving up to nine people increased by more than 5 per cent. Such accidents killed more than 8,000 workers.
Ninety-seven accidents claimed the lives of 10 or more people, which was down from last year. However, 1,595 people still lost their lives in such accidents.
More than 70 per cent of all reported incidents were caused by unsafe work practices, said Sun Huashan , deputy head of the administration.
The number of people killed in road accidents - 77,664 in 384,381 separate incidents - climbed by about 2 per cent.
"The conditions of the roads are backward, the conditions of the vehicles are backward and people's safety awareness is even more backward," Mr Sun said. "The high number of fatalities on our roads is a problem that will be very hard for us to curb in the short term."
Mr Sun dismissed a recent World Health Organisation report claiming that more than 200,000 people died on the mainland's roads each year. "This report is wrong," he said. "The accidents are counted, one by one, by traffic police, so there can only be one accurate figure."
According to the administration, about 104,000 people died in accidents on the roads last year.
Despite a series of high-profile disasters, the number of fatalities occurring within the mining and chemical industries, at fireworks plants and during construction projects has declined.
The number of deaths from chemical-related accidents was 183, down more than 28 per cent compared to last year.
Officials attributed the reductions to nationwide government inspections and campaigns to root out poor safety practices.
About a dozen accidents involving the chemical industry occurred in the 10 days after a chlorine gas explosion at Tianyuan Chemical Industry Plant in Chongqing in April, which killed nine people and led to the evacuation of about 150,000 residents.
"We [then] underwent a thorough nationwide inspection and found more than 100,000 potential threats, of which 40,000 have been taken out of the picture by the closure of 5,020 unsafe plants," Mr Sun said.
