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Watchdog briefs on workplace safety

By Hu Yinan (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-10-25 10:46

Ten workplace accidents involving at least 30 fatalities each have been reported this year, five of them over a two-week period in September, the national work safety agency said on Friday.

In an interview via the government's website, Huang Yi, a spokesman for the State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS), said the State Council has set up teams to investigate the 10 incidents, to find out their causes, losses, and to determine who was directly or indirectly responsible.

Some of the results of the investigations will be announced soon, and firms found guilty will be blacklisted, he said.

Five of the incidents related to coal mines, with the worst being the collapse of the iron waste reservoir in Xiangfen, Shanxi province, on Sept 8, which left 276 people dead. Four others were reported in the following 13 days, Huang said.

On July 14, 34 miners and one rescue worker were killed when illegally stored explosives ignited at the Lijiawa mine in Yuxian county, Hubei province. Despite the high number of fatalities, local officials covered up the incident for three months, silencing the media and victims' relatives through bribery and other means, Huang said.

However, witnesses and friends of those who were killed filed complaints to the SAWS and sought justice by posting information about what had happened on the Internet.

Their action prompted the central government to investigate the accident, which was made public on Oct 7.

Huang said 25 officials involved in the cover-up - including the local work safety chief, village heads and police officers who harbored the mine owners - were subsequently sacked, and 22 of them were prosecuted.

Unlicensed production and a disregard for the law were the main reasons for the disasters, he said. Other reasons include neglect of industry regulations, lack of supervision and corruption, he said.

"In some cases, officials colluded with businessmen to form groups with common interests to protect illegal companies and mine owners, even to the extent of staging coverups," Huang said. "That's why the companies thought they had nothing to fear, and made their reckless moves."

Last year's amendments to the Criminal Law, which specified accident cover-ups as a standalone crime, were by far the most effective measures in combating the concealment of accidents, Huang said.

The SAWS received 150 complaints between January and October, down 40.9 percent year on year, he said.

These led to the discovery of 29 accidents, down 54 percent on last year, he said.

Last year, 3,786 lives were lost in accidents at coal mines, down 20 percent on 2006, and the figure has fallen every month for the first eight months of this year, Huang said.

But the cover-ups continue, he said. The SAWS discovered traces of concealment during its investigation of the Loufan accident, and is now looking deeper into the case.