All 12 trapped miners confirmed dead

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-04-09 13:48

All 12 miners trapped underground at a coalmine in Heilongjiang province have been confirmed dead, a senior official said yesterday.

They were victims of a flood that occurred at Jinli Coalmine in Jixi city at about 5:30 am on Saturday. State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS) spokesman Huang Yi described the accident as one involving "liability".

"The mine was operating illegally, as it had not been authorized by safety inspectors after production was halted in January," Huang said in an online interview.

"And the mine did not strictly follow water drainage rules," he said, adding the incident remained under investigation.

Each victim's family will receive at least 200,000 yuan ($29,000) in compensation, director of Jixi's work safety bureau Fang Dongchu said yesterday.

CCTV tower blaze

Huang also said the State Council had set up an investigation team to look into a blaze that destroyed a China Central Television (CCTV) tower during a Feb 9 fireworks display.

One firefighter was killed and seven others were injured.

Huang said those responsible for the fire will be dealt with according to laws and regulations.

So far, 12 people have been arrested for "causing an accident with dangerous articles". But Huang explained that despite these major accidents, the national work safety situation has actually improved in the first quarter of the year.

Latest figures showed that from January to March, there were about 100,000 work accidents that killed 18,000 people, down 10 percent and 6 percent respectively over the same period last year.

"The number of major accidents in the first three months in particular has dropped by 10 cases, or 40 percent year-on-year," Huang said.

Major accidents refer to those with a death toll between 10 and 30, or injuries numbering between 50 and 100.

But Huang acknowledged the work safety situation remains grim, while the main cause of frequent accidents was "poor implementation of laws, regulations and government policies".

He said stronger measures to ensure enforcement of relevant rules and policies, and more public and media supervision, were needed to solve the problem.

"We'll continue encouraging public and media supervision over work safety in the future," he said. "And we'll try to work with relevant departments to open a unified national hotline, something similar to the police emergency line 110, to facilitate public reports."

China Daily