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Chinese Local Government Suspends Mayors in Mine Accident Town

Posted on: Tuesday, 9 August 2005, 18:00 CDT

Text of report in English by official Chinese news agency Xinhua (New China News Agency)

Guangzhou, 9 August: Two mayors, who are responsible for the colliery flooding accident which trapped at least 123 miners in southern Guangdong Province, has been suspended from duties, local government announced Tuesday [9 August].

He Zhengba, mayor of Meizhou, and Zeng Xianghai, mayor of Xingning, were blamed for being incompetent for supervising the coal mine production in the area under their jurisdiction, according to the provincial government. [Passage omitted]

"Currently, they are still trapped about 480 meters underground. The chance of survival for the trapped miners is slim after being stranded for more than 55 hours," he added.

Nevertheless, Huang Huahua, governor of Guangdong, pledged, "If there is a tiny hope, we will spare no efforts to rescue the trapped miners."

The owners of the privately-run colliery had fled and left no records, which hobbled the rescue and investigation work.

However, most of the runaway management staffs have returned to the coal mine after local government issued a notice Monday to call for them to come back to help the investigation.

Before that, Zeng Fanjin, the mine owner and Luo Changxian, chief technical supervisor, have been controlled by police and were receiving investigation. [Passage omitted]

Experts from the state production safety watchdog and relevant local departments have worked out a more efficient rescue plan including reinforcing the pumping efforts and drilling spillways from adjacent pits.

At present, four pumps are working round-the-clock and five high- power ones are to be installed. But the rescue may require a long spell as the coal mine is feared to be full of water.

"The tragedy was caused by mine owners' greed for economic profits and malignant violation of safety rules," said Li Yizhong, director of the National Bureau of Production Safety Supervision and Administration, who was supervising the rescue operation and the investigation at the site.

Li said the mine is illegal as it has no production licence. In addition, it continued its production despite that local government has ordered all mines in Ningxing suspended operation for safety examination after another flooding accident happened to a coal mine on 14 July.

According to local government, the Daxing Coal Mine was founded in 1990 with a designed annual production capacity of 30,000 tons [tonnes] of coal.

"However, investigation showed that the mine has produced around 60,000 tons of coal in the first half of this year," said Yi.

The provincial government ordered all the coal mines in the province to halt operation for safety examination on Tuesday.

Guangdong currently has more than 260 coal mines, mainly small- sized ones, with a total annual output of 8.1 million tons of coal.

"A thorough examination on all local mines should be launched immediately and those who fail to meet the national production safety standards must be closed," said Zhang Dejiang, secretary of the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] Guangdong Provincial Committee, at a conference held in Guangzhou Tuesday.

Source: BBC Monitoring Newsfile

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