Work-related accidents fall 16% year-on-year

China saw fewer work-related accidents and fatalities last year as authorities strengthened inspections and penalties, said Wang Yupu, head of the State Administration of Work Safety.

About 53,000 work-related accidents occurred nationwide in 2017, down 16.2 percent year-on-year. Those accidents killed 38,000 people, a decline of 12.1 percent.

"Extremely severe" accidents declined from 32 in 2016 to 25 last year, and fatalities in these accidents decreased by 228 from 2016 to 342 last year, Wang said at a national work safety conference on Monday.

Accidents are classified as "extremely severe" if they result in more than 30 deaths or severely injure more than 100 people, or cause direct economic losses of more than 100 million yuan ($15.6 million).

Wang said the work safety situation is still pressing, as more than 100 people were killed a day last year, which is a "shocking number".

The country faces more challenges in work safety controls as the economy develops, which results in the continuous expansion of production capacity and scale, he said.

About 43 million people travel in China every day and 350,000 vehicles transport 1 billion metric tons of hazardous chemical substances a year.