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China's Work Safety Chief Proposes Six Measures to Prevent Mine Accidents

Posted on: Thursday, 8 December 2005, 18:00 CST

Text of report by reporters Sun Yuting, Pan Haitao and Tian Zhangmeng entitled: "Li Yizhong: Six measures need to be resolutely adopted to put a brake on frequent occurrence of mine accidents", carried by Chinese news agency Zhongguo Xinwen She

Tangshan, 8 December: Li Yizhong, director of State Administration of Work Safety Supervision, said today that the state must resolutely adopt measures to put a brake on the current situation of frequently occurring mine accidents.

The clock on the wall was about to point to 2 a.m. [local time] In a second-floor conference room in the office building located next to the scene of the Liuguantun Colliery mine accident in Tangshan, Hebei, a solemn-looking Li Yizhong directly faced participants of the meeting, including Hebei Provincial Governor Ji Yunshi, when he emphatically made the above statement.

Li Yizhong proposed six measures:

First, eliminate hidden dangers and focus on prevention. Right now, this does not look like it is necessarily being done very well, and should be further emphasized.

Second, suspend production to carry out overhauls. Right now, the suspension list has already been publicized. This is suspending for real, not pretending to suspend. Feigning overhaul while really mining, and suspending during the day only to resume at night must both be prevented.

Third, immediately close all collieries that have been determined to be closed. The list and number of these collieries have already been determined. They must be closed immediately without delay. It has been discovered that some mines make use of the one month or half month before closure to madly reap some profit, which has more often than not been the cause of frequent accidents.

Fourth, some places took advantage of their mines undergoing basic construction and technical reconstruction to preserve some mineshafts that do not meet safety production requirements. So, all mines undergoing basic construction, reconstruction and expansion, and technical reconstruction must now suspend construction. The mineshaft where this mine accident happened is precisely a mineshaft undergoing basic construction, but just now we discovered that it was being mined illegally. They started mining 13 July and already mined over 10,000 tons of coal, dumped in a heap out there. Similar situations exist. This does not mean all mineshafts are problematic, but right now, all construction on these mineshafts must first be stopped.

Fifth, mineshafts must first be closed and then reorganized. The so-called resource reorganization means reconstituting the resources, assets, and capitals of some coal mines. They are not a gathering of small collieries that do not meet safety production requirements, but it has now been discovered that some places preserved some unqualified small collieries through resource reorganization. Therefore, aiming at this phenomenon, mineshafts undergoing resource reorganization must first be shut down and their production halted, and then carry out reorganization based on a set of reorganization plans, after which they can only resume mining upon passing government verification.

Sixth, implementation must be carried out by the government. The government must be relied on to jointly implement the law; it is not enough to merely rely on the safety administration and the coal mine safety administration. The coal mine industry bureau, industry and commerce departments, the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources, and even the public security departments must also start to work together.

Li Yizhong says the purpose of these six measures is to put a brake on the current frequent occurrence of mine accidents.

Source: BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific

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