By Xinhua
Beijing : About 3,800 people were killed in coal mine accidents in China in 2007, the country’s work safety watchdog State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS) said Saturday.
The fatality figure was 20.2 percent less than in 2006.
“It is the second consecutive year for the country to report a 20-percent fall in coal mine accident fatalities,” Li Yizhong, head of SAWS said at a national work safety meeting in Beijing.
China has been shutting down coalmines with small capacities and investing more in safety facilities to improve the coalmine safety record.
Small coalmines accounted for one third of all the coalmines in China, but caused two thirds of the total coalmine related deaths every year, according to SAWS.
China had closed 11,155 small coalmines, 45 percent of the country’s total, since it began to shut down small collieries in the second half of 2005, it said.
As the world’s largest coal producer, China has seen frequent coalmine accidents as safety enforcement was lax and mine owners pushed production beyond safety limits to earn higher profits.
The country’s coal output was estimated at 2.52 billion tonnes last year, five percent higher than in 2006, according to Li.
The meeting said Friday that 101,480 people had died in workplace and transportation accidents in 2007, down 10.1 percent year-on-year, with road-related accidents down 8.7 percent and railway-related accidents down 45.1 percent.