On March 10, the director of the State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS) told a Beijing press conference that coal mine accidents claimed 931 lives last year, as the death toll dropped below 1,000 for the first time.
"The situation has been greatly improved," said the SAWS director, Yang Dongliang, according to Agence France-Presse.
Speaking on the sidelines of China's annual legislative sessions, Yang mixed praise for safety advances with a promise that the agency was determined to do more.
The most recent fatality figure represented an 86.7 percent decline from the toll of some 7,000 in 2002, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
"The nation is still confronted with grave and complicated challenges in coal mine work safety, as the authorities aim to achieve a zero-death target," Yang said.
There seems little doubt that China has made major steps forward in lowering the casualty count in an industry that accounts for half the world's coal output.
In 1996-2000, deaths in coal mines averaged 7,619 annually, or over 20 per day, about eight times more than last year, as cited in previous official reports. . . .
By comparison, U.S. coal accidents claimed 16 lives last year, according to the Mine Safety and Health Administration. At that rate, China suffered 58 times more deaths to produce
four times as much coal. . . .
The government seems to be focusing more intently on prevention of methane gas explosions and major accidents to reduce the fatality rate further.
Last month, the National Energy Administration (NEA) said in a statement that 266 people were killed in 47 coal mine gas accidents last year, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Feb. 12.
Methane gas blasts
The number of deaths from methane gas blasts was down 27.5 percent from 2013, the NEA said, without giving the total of number of fatalities from all accidents in coal mines.
"More effort must be made in 2015 to avoid major accidents (those with over 30 deaths), reduce those that kill more than 10 and achieve a year-on-year reduction of casualties by over 10 percent," the NEA said. . . .
The thresholds for defining major accidents may have their drawbacks, as some mine operators try to sidestep the rules that require higher penalties or suspensions for each category of fatalities.
Understated deaths?
In a 2006 article for the Jamestown Foundation research and analysis organization in Washington, China energy expert Jianjun Tu argued that official reports understate the real totals, "as mine owners routinely falsify death counts in order to avoid mine closures or fines."
The highest accident category of 30 or more deaths automatically triggers an investigation led by the State Council, or government cabinet, the Hong Kong-based China Labour Bulletin said.
In what may be the worst recent case involving the accident definitions in 2013, a State Council probe found that mine operators in northeastern Jilin province understated the death toll from a gas explosion to avoid falling into the 30-or-more category.
The Babao Coal Mine Co. in Baishan City reported 28 deaths and 13 injuries from the accident, although the real death toll reached 36, Xinhua reported at the time.
Investigators then found that the mine had concealed six additional deaths in five other accidents during 2012. Seventeen more miners died in another explosion in 2013, when the mine ignored a government-ordered shutdown, Xinhua said.
