Many accident-prone small-scale coalmines are still operating
despite a nationwide campaign aimed at closing such mines down,
according to the results of a recent high-level inspection.
The work of shutting these mines down is progressing very
slowly, Li Yizhong, minister of the State Administration of Work
Safety, was quoted by the People's Daily as saying
yesterday.
The authorities launched the crackdown on unsafe small mines in
response to the growing frequency of deadly colliery accidents in
recent years.
The crackdown targets mines with an annual production capacity
of less than 30,000 tons. Such mines are to be either shut down or
merged to form bigger ones.
Li urged those provinces that have fallen behind in their
efforts to shut down small-scale operators to speed up their
work.
The minister and his colleagues recently inspected 10 provinces
and municipalities to make sure the crackdown was proceeding
apace.
They found that many local government officials had not bothered
to enforce the shut-down order and did not have any measures in
place to prevent small mines from opening again.
The inspection team that visited northwest China's Shaanxi
Province, which Li himself led, found that provincial officials had
only shut down about half of the small mines that should have been
closed last year.
The province had targeted 80 mines for closure last year, but
only managed to follow through on 44 of them.
The remaining mines were claimed to have been awaiting mergers
with other mines, the paper reported.
However, a mine in Hancheng that had been ordered closed in 1999
opened again last July. A gas explosion there in February this year
killed two people and injured another two.
The inspection team ordered provincial officials to do more to
ensure that all of the small mines on the list were shut down by
the end of this year.
In southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, only 33 of the 175
mines that had been targeted for closure last year were shut
down.
To prevent these mines from starting up operations again, the
inspection team suggested bringing forward Chongqing's closure
deadline from the end of this year to the end of next month.
The authorities have attributed the high frequency of accidents
at the country's mines to the spread of illegal small-scale
operations, collusion between unscrupulous mine-owners and local
officials and lax management standards.
The strong demand for coal has proved a strong incentive for
some mine-owners to flout the rules.
Li said about 70 percent of colliery accidents occur at small
mines, which often rely on primitive techniques and inadequate
safety facilities.
"These life-devouring traps must be stamped out as soon as
possible," Li said last November, after a series of serious coal
mine accidents occurred within the space of just four days.
Altogether, nearly 6,000 small coalmines have been shut so far.
About the same number should be closed during the coming two
years.
Mining accidents killed 4,746 last year, or 20 percent less than
in the year before.
(China Daily February 16, 2007)