According to the State Council's regulation on safety production, local officials should be held accountable and punished if they fail to report safety-related accidents to their superior departments, or organize timely rescue operations, or try to hide the truth. This stipulation, to a large extent, prompts them to rush to overemphasize their "timely and effective emergency response mechanisms" that are activated during emergencies, while paying little attention to provide detailed information to the public.

Rescue and relief work is no doubt important, but the public in most cases wants to know official figures for casualties (if any) and the causes of accidents. The last thing people want to hear after a tragic incident is self-praise. Timely, well-organized and effective rescue work is a job local governments are obliged to do because they run on taxpayers' money. Besides, people also want to know whether human factors were responsible for an accident or incident, whether there exists an accountability mechanism and whether practical measures will be taken to prevent similar incidents.

Given that accidents are a source of pain to many, local governments should refrain from indulging in self-praise and, instead, make maximum efforts to meet people's need to know the truth, and that too in details.

The author is a senior writer with China Daily.

wuyixue@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 01/10/2015 page5)