Industrial Tragedies Highlight Safety Concerns in China


		AcuSafe Home Page -> August/September 2001 Newsletter
		Industrial Tragedies Highlight Safety Concerns in China

With the international spotlight focusing on China since the award of the 2008 Olympic Games, Chinese officials are scrambling to improve their poor industrial safety record. So far this year alone 47,000 people have been killed in 350,000 industrial and transportation accidents. Last year, mining incidents accounted for 5,300 fatalities in 2000. The official Xinhua news agency reported that the nation's top industrial safety official, Zhang Baoming, has ordered a tightening of standards in mines, factories, roads and waterways. The government has ordered all small mines closed for safety reviews after a series of incidents throughout the largest coal producing nation in the world.

These latest incidents deaths capped a number of recent explosions and accidents, including:

Forty six miners were killed after an explosion ripped through a the Xuzhou mine in Jaingsu Province. The mine was illegally reopened after being closed in June for safety reasons.

Twenty one miners were killed after a mine flooded in Jilin Province.

Eighteen miners were presumed dead after a mine flooded in Guizhou Province. Thirteen of those miners have been trapped since the gold mine flooded with no hope of rescue.

Eight miners were killed in an underground gas explosion in Henan Province.

In Shanghai, a new gantry crane collapse at a shipyard killed 36 people. About 20 people were on the crane when it collapsed.

In Shaanxi Province, a blast from illegally stored explosives killed 69 people.

In the city of Chongquing, five villagers were killed in an explosion at a firecracker workshop.

"There are some areas, particularly on the county and township level, where leaders do not know enough, are not firm enough, and do not work hard enough" to guarantee safety in production, Xinhua has quoted Mr. Zhang as saying.