History repeats. The whole world is watching 100+ coal miners dying in China

The first body has just been found while I keep my fingers crossed. It makes me even more distressed while I realize the whole world is watching them to die. It also makes me furious that a smiliar case has just occured to the the same town on July 14th, this year. 16 miners died in that accident. The owner didn't even have a business license and disappeared after that diaster. Likewise, the owner and managers, total 65 people, have fled immediately after this incident as well.

Here are the three biggest mine diasters in the last year...
On Feb. 14th, 2004, 214 died in the accident at Sajiawang mine in Liaoning province.
On Nov. 28th, 2004, 166 died at Tongchuan mine in Shan'xi province.
On Oct. 20th, 2004, 148 died at Daping mine in Henan province.
....

Every year, thousands of miners died in China mostly because of the illegal operations. Yet many young peasants still choose to go mining everyday. Some of them even "stockpiling arms resisting efforts to halt illegal mining and poisoning their own water".

So what is the solution??? Where is the solution???
It seems that the mine safety issue should be attached directly to the local authority, and the local leaders have to share the same legal liability with the mine owners. China enforced the similar policy to the firework industry, which has greatly reduced massive deadly accidents since then. China also has been successful in keeping "one child policy" by adopting similar regulations.
Otherwise, nationwide private mining should be stopped until the safe private mining can be envisioned. Laissez-faire capitalism does not work out at least for now on this issue.

Chinese Rescuers Lose Hope for Miners; Mayors Sacked (Update2)
Aug. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Chinese officials sacked two mayors and arrested 10 mine owners as one miner's body was recovered from a flooded coal shaft in southern China and efforts continue to save 122 others trapped since Aug. 7.

Rescuers, who have pumped out more than 20 million cubic meters of water, found the body this morning, said An Yuanjie, spokeswoman for the central government's State Administration of Work Safety, which took over rescue efforts from local authorities at the Xingning mine in Guangdong province.

``We'll continue the rescue effort as long as there is hope but we are quickly losing hope,'' An said.

The accident would be the worst since 214 miners died after a gas explosion occurred in a mine shaft on Feb. 15 in northern China, An said. China, the world's biggest coal producer, has thousands of poorly managed, privately run pits kept open to meet demand for fuel to keep the country's economy growing.

``We're cracking down on non-compliance with safety procedures and we arrested 10 mine owners and managers last night,'' An said. ``This is the first major step in sending out a message that work safety is the number one priority in the mining industry.''

The 10 owners arrested were among the 65 supervisors and shareholders who fled after the flooding occurred, An said. Officials originally estimated that 103 miners were trapped. Water is still being pumped from the mine.

The government also suspended for negligence of duty two local officials, the mayors of Xingning and the neighboring city of Meizhou, China's state-run Xinhua News Agency reported. The report didn't name the two officials.

Enforcing Safety

About 20,000 of China's 25,000 mines are small-scale, privately run operations, An said.

``Local governments have not been enforcing our safety regulations,'' An said. ``We must increase our investigation of mines as well as local officials who do not enforce the rules.''

Mining accidents left 3,149 miners dead in the first seven months of this year, a 3.5 percent increase from the same period a year earlier, An said.

``China is certainly down at the bottom of nations for mining safety,'' Robin Munro, research director of Hong Kong- based China Labour Bulletin, a labor activist group. ``Ukraine may be worse, but because of China's sheer size, China is the worst as far as mining deaths go.''



To contact the reporter on this story:
Allen T. Cheng in Beijing at Acheng13@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: August 10, 2005 01:24 EDT