China struggles to contain deadly coal industry

By Bill Smith Apr 26, 2007, 9:26 GMT

Beijing - Mei Chengfang suffered serious burns to his neck and wrist after a fire broke out in November while he was working in a coal mine in the north-western Chinese province of Gansu.

The 28-year-old farmer had left his home in the poor, landlocked province of Qinghai to find work, like tens of millions of migrant workers across China.

After his brush with death, Mei was only willing to tell local journalists one thing: He could not believe he had gotten out alive.

At least 5,000 other coal miners were not so lucky last year, perishing in fires, explosions, cave-ins, floods and build-ups of methane.

China produced 2.3 billion tons, or about 35 per cent of the world's coal, last year but recorded 80 per cent of the deaths in the industry.

Its death rate per ton of mined coal is at least 50 times that of the most developed nations and far higher than other major developing nations such as India.

'The geological situation in China is quite complicated, and China needs a lot of resources to meet the demand of its booming economy, so there is a higher death rate in China,' Li Jing, an expert at the government's Global Change and Sustainable Development Institute, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

'On the other hand, we need to admit that we did not pay enough attention to the safety issues, especially in some small, privately owned coal mines,' Li said.

China's death rate dropped to 2.04 per ton of coal last year from 2.83 in 2005, but the death rate is as low as 0.4 in developed nations such as the United States and Australia, state media quoted Li Yizhong, the director of the State Administration of Work Safety, as saying in March.

An unknown number of deaths in illegal mines are not included in this official reckoning, and such a conservative estimate is still at least double India's death rate.

The huge scale of the industry is one reason why China, which uses three times as much energy as India, has such a high death rate from coal mining, Kishan Khoday, the UN Development Programme's (UNDP's) assistant representative in China, told dpa.

'Another big issue is the incredible demand of this rapidly growing economy for energy,' said Khoday, who manages climate-change and coal-safety projects in China.

The ruling Communist Party is negotiating a delicate balance in trying to improve safety.

It does not want to make itself unpopular by being too heavy-handed in poor, inland areas where local people and sometimes officials resent 'interference' from central authorities in affluent Beijing.

Khoday said there is an 'implementation gap' in enforcement of mining-safety regulations.

In March, the UNDP and the Chinese government launched a four-year project to improve coal-mine safety.

The 14-million-dollar project is designed to improve safety standards and regulations and their enforcement in an industry that employs 5 million to 8 million people at mines, according to different estimates.

'A big part of it is going to be addressing some kind of responsibility from the companies,' Khoday said.

It is to focus on small-scale town and village mines, where the death rate is almost double the national average, including a pilot training centre for miners and their families in four provinces.

'In addition to improving standards and mining methods, this project will work individually with miners and their families in finding solutions to safety challenges,' Khalid Malik, the UN resident coordinator in China, said at the launch of the project.

The government aims to improve control of underground gas, close more illegal mines and accelerate efforts to bring safety management closer to international standards this year, said Peng Jianxun of the State Administration of Coal Mine Safety.

Li Jing, however, saw many remaining obstacles, including local support for dangerous mining operations and the huge pool of migrants looking for work.

'If the farmers could earn enough money for a better life, I think they would choose stay at home and work in agriculture,' he said. 'In order to handle it properly, we need to make further efforts to help the poor, to increase their income.'

Protection of illegal mining operations by local officials and police is another major barrier to safety improvements.

The government is trying to consolidate the industry into larger mining groups and last year required local officials to declare their financial interests in coal mines.

Few officials came forward, and many are believed to hold stakes in the names of friends or relatives, making it more difficult for the central government to unmask them.

'As far as I know, in certain poor areas, the taxes from illegal coal mines have become the main contributor to the local economy,' Li Jing said.

'Definitely, local authorities are unwilling to close these mines,' he added.