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China news tagged with: mine safety (192)

• Hush Money Journalism

  

  Caixin, edited by Hu Shuli, reports on media corruption and the recent mining disaster cover-up in Weixian, Hebei:

  Later last year, a dozen journalists were discovered to have taken hush money totaling 2.6 million yuan, according to a Hebei Provincial government report released January 9. Local authorities in Weixian, Hebei Province bribed journalists, including four from national media, to silence a mining accident that occurred July 14, 2008. Crowds of journalists lined up for hush money to be handed out after a local coal mine accident in Shanxi Province Nov. 3, 2008.

  As these cases show, the lure of money continues to dull the consciences of a few journalists. But as for whether only the journalists should be responsible, Professor Zhan Jiang from the Beijing Foreign Studies University said that the brunt of criticism ought to be directed at local government officials.

  Officials in areas with intense mining, such as Hebei and Shanxi, are frequently found attempting to conceal accidents from the public. Professor Zhan said local authorities in mining areas have come to rely on concealing work safety accidents through cutting information off from the public and using public funds for bribes. Zhan says this systemic corruption creates “professional blackmail journalists.”

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  • February 4, 2010 4:28 PM

• The Cover-Up Of The Weixian Mining Disaster

  

  ESWN translates a China Youth Daily article about the mining bos paid out 26. million yuan in hush money to reporters covering the deadly accident at his mine in Weixian, Hebei Province:

  On January 20, 2010, when the China Youth Daily reporter arrived at this coal mine almost 30 kilometers away from the Weixian county city, it was snowing hard. The white snow was slowly covering up this blackish abandoned coal mine.

  For the families of the 35 coal mine workers who lost their lives during this mining disaster, their sorrows could not be covered up as quickly. The responsibility of the relevant local leaders who covered up the incident could not be covered up either. And most of all, the scandal of the waves of reporters who showed up after the incident to demand “shut-up” fees must not be covered up.

  On January 9, 2010, the Hebei provincial government reported on the progress of the investigation of the 7.14 mining disaster at the Liajiawa coal mine in Weixian county. At the moment, 48 persons were held responsibility and referred to the judiciary for criminal prosecution. The former Weixian county party secretary Li Hongxing was sentenced to 13 years in jail. The former Weixian county mayor Qi Jianhua was sentenced to 14 years in jail. 18 other persons in Zhangjiakou city and Weixian county were punished according to party and political discipline. Of these, the former Weixian county party publicity department director, its former deputy-director and its former information officer deputy director were expelled from the Party and fired from their jobs.

  On January 20, an old cadre who has been paying attention to this case for a long time told the China Youth Daily reporter: “The relevant officials are being held accountable. Most of the cases have been tried. But why aren’t they going after the reporters who asked for ’shut-up’ fees? Why won’t they even publish the list of those who received ’shut-up’ fees?”

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  • February 1, 2010 10:07 PM

• Scribe Gets 16 Years in Mine Accident Coverup

  

  A journalist has been sentenced to 16 years in prison for accepting bribes in the cover-up of a mining disaster in the lead-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. From China Daily:

  Li Junqi, former director of the Hebei bureau of Farmers’ Daily, is believed to be the first of the 10 reporters involved in the scandal to receive criminal punishment.

  Thirty-four miners and a rescuer died after a blast ripped through the Lijiawa mine in Yuxian county on July 14, 2008, three weeks before the start of the Beijing Olympics.

  According to local media reports, mine bosses relocated bodies, destroyed evidence and paid the journalists 2.6 million yuan ($380,000) to cover up the disaster, keeping the tragedy from appearing in newspapers for 85 days.

  Following a State Council probe into the accident, the 10 journalists confessed to taking bribes, resulting in the prosecution of 48 local officials.

  The identities of the 10 journalists have not been made public, but reports claim Guan Jian, a Beijing journalist from China Internet Weekly, and Li were among them.

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  • January 5, 2010 9:31 PM

• China Mine Blasts Kill 17

  

  From AFP:

  Seventeen coal miners have been killed and six others trapped in two gas explosions in China, state media said Monday, in the latest accidents to strike the country’s notoriously dangerous mining sector.

  A dozen workers were killed in a blast late Sunday at the Donggou coal mine in the city of Jiexiu in northern Shanxi province, China’s coal-producing heartland, Xinhua news agency quoted local authorities as saying.

  The accident happened after the workers “violated a safety rule” by demolishing a wall between the shaft and a disused area of the mine where gas had accumulated, a spokesman for the local work safety administration said.

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  • December 28, 2009 4:24 AM

• Shanxi Coal Mine Bosses, Extravagant Lifestyles

  

  chinaSMACK translates netizens’ reactions to news that Shanxi plans to reorganize the coal mining industry, potentially eliminating the corrupt and indulgent lifestyles of many coal mine bosses:

  Speaking of Shanxi coal bosses, people cannot help but think of their throwing money around, being extremely wealthy, driving Hummers, buying groups of buildings/houses, keeping mistresses…as “coal boss” and “money” has seemingly become synonymous.

  An even more important reason they are in the public eye like this, aside from having money, are coal mine accidents, their short-sightedness and greed having also brought to society many negative effects, and causing the title of “coal boss” to be associated with heartless and bloody. “Seeking personal wealth, ignoring safety” because their most negative image.

  Now that coal bosses will soon exit history’s stage, if only coal mine accidents can also never reappear.

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  • December 3, 2009 1:58 PM

• China to Try 58 Accused of Covering up Mine Deaths

  

  Local reporters and officials are being charged with bribery in a cover-up of a mining disaster in Hebei just before the 2008 Olympics. From AP:

  Officials in Hebei province’s Yuxian county paid journalists a total of 2.6 million yuan ($380,000) not to report the July 14, 2008, accident, in which 34 miners and one rescuer were killed, the China Daily said.

  In addition to bribing reporters, officials silenced relatives of the dead with large compensation payments and threats of retribution if they talked, the paper said. The measures managed to keep the accident silent for 85 days, the paper said, without saying how it eventually became known.

  It’s fairly common for officials to pay such bribes to keep higher ranking leaders from finding out about disasters and to avoid being fired or handed demerits. Often the payments are disguised as advertising buys or subscription fees.

  Yuxian officials had even more reason to keep the accident silent because it struck just three weeks before the Beijing Olympic Games in the midst of a national safety campaign, when the central government was bent on painting only the most positive picture of China to the world.

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  • November 30, 2009 12:11 PM

• Official: China Mine that Exploded was Too Crowded

  

  AP reports that more than 500 miners were underground when the mine in Heilongjiang exploded, killing 104, and a government official told Xinhua that the mine’s structure was “far too complicated for its current ventilation system to work effectively”:

  The coal mine that exploded in northern China, killing 104, had too many workers underground in an effort to increase output, a government official said Monday, exposing the risks often taken to meet the country’s insatiable energy demands.

  The weekend gas explosion — China’s worst mining accident in two years — was a blow to the government’s recent efforts to improve safety standards in the industry, the deadliest in the world.

  Grieving relatives, who wailed at the gate of the Xinxing mining office Monday morning, were shocked that the such a blast could occur at one of China’s state-run mines, which the government has promoted as being safer that smaller, privately run concerns.

  “We thought the state mines were safe. Why did he die?” Liu Shujiu asked a reporter who was allowed into the mining complex. Liu’s 38-year-old husband Zhang Shulai was among the victims. The couple have a 9-year-old daughter. “How do I tell her that her father is not coming home?”

  But even as officials hustled to calm the families, miners idled near the shafts in their battered work clothes, waiting for word that their shifts might start again.

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  • November 23, 2009 2:15 PM

• China’s Coal-Mine Explosion Death Toll Rises to 104

  

  The death toll in this weekend’s Heilongjiang mining disaster has been raised to 104, making it the worst mining accident in two years in China, Bloomberg reports:

  Four miners are still trapped underground, the official Xinhua News Agency said. A total of 528 were working when the blast occurred at 2:30 a.m. on Nov. 21 at the Xinxing mine in northeastern China, the State Administration of Work Safety said on its Web site.

  The accident may spur China, which relies on the fuel to generate 80 percent of its power, to order its second nationwide safety check on coal mines in three months. The death toll at the Xinxing mine is the highest since 105 were killed at the Xinyao pit in Shanxi in December 2007, the China Daily said.

  “The incident will have an impact on future coal supply,” Li Dagang, a coal analyst with Essence Securities Ltd, said by telephone in Shanghai today. “It may trigger stringent safety checks all across the country,”

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  • November 22, 2009 10:35 PM

• China Mine Lift Collapse Kills 26

  

  From BBC News:

  The collapse of two lift cages in a mine in central China has killed 26 men and injured five others.

  The accident occurred in Lengshuijiang city in Hunan province when the lift brakes failed, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

  Production at the mine, which includes tin ore, antimony and zinc, has been suspended.

  China’s mining industry is notoriously dangerous, despite tighter government regulations aimed at upgrading safety.

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  • October 8, 2009 11:26 PM

• Video: Journey to the End of Coal

  

  An interactive web documentary takes viewers on a journey through the economy of coal in China. From the introduction:

  Journey To The End Of Coal tells you the story of a sacrifice. A sacrifice millions of Chinese coal miners are making everyday, risking their lives and spoiling their land to satisfy their own country’s appetite for economic growth.

  Your journey begins in Datong which is located just a couple hours away West from Beijing. You travel from there all around the region and visit its major coal mines, from the “best” state-owned complex to the worst private coal plants.

  In and around the coal mines, you get the story first hand from the mingong, the rural migrants traveling their country looking for work.

  At your own pace and will, you meet them and learn more about how they live in this valley of death and pollution, sometimes even literally bumping into them as they leave their home for their night shift, in the frozen winter of Northern China.

  Ultimately, you might discover China forbidden mines in which happen most of the accidents.

  Watch the full version here, or watch a trailer below (h/t Evan Osnos):
  

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  • September 17, 2009 4:45 PM

• Officials Punished after China Mine Accidents

  

  The ax is falling on local officials in Henan, where two mining accidents this week have killed 57 people, AFP reports:

  So far, 44 people have died and 35 are still trapped underground after a gas explosion at a coal mine on Tuesday in Pingdingshan city, the official Xinhua news agency reported. Rescue operations were ongoing, it said.

  On Wednesday, 13 people, including miners and rescue personnel, were killed when a fire erupted at a gold mine in the city of Sanmenxia.

  In Pingdingshan, three mine officials have been detained and two local officials sacked, Xinhua said. The city’s 157 mines have been shut down pending a safety review.

  [...] Following the gold mine fire in Sanmenxia, which started when a partial cave-in short-circuited some electrical wires, four local officials were suspended, three mine managers sacked and one official detained, Xinhua reported.

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  • September 10, 2009 3:08 PM

• China Says Coal Mine Blast Kills 35 in Henan

  

  Forty-four miners are trapped and 35 died in a Henan mine, according to AP:

  The State Administration of Work Safety said the pre-dawn explosion Tuesday happened at Xinhua No. 4 pit in Pingdingshan city in Henan province.

  A statement on the administration’s Web site did not give a reason for the blast. It said 14 miners managed to flee to safety. There were 93 men working underground at the time of the blast, it said.

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  • September 7, 2009 6:53 PM

• Eleven Dead in Coal Mine Blast in North China

  

  Xinhua reports on the latest mining disaster:

  At least 11 people are dead and three are missing after a coal mine gas blast Monday in Shanxi Province, the local coal industry authority said.

  The explosion ripped through a shaft of the Xingguang Coal Industry Co. Ltd. in Jinzhong City at 11:10 a.m. when 16 miners were working around the area, according to the Coal Industry Administration of Shanxi.

  Rescuers lifted two workers to the ground, and recovered 11 bodies.

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  • August 24, 2009 9:18 PM

• Coal Mine Blast in Chongqing

  

  The Times of India reports that a coal mine blast in Chongqing municipality has killed at least thirty people:

  

  101 miners were rescued, the official Xinhua news agency reported. Of the rescued, 59 miners were injured, including four in serious condition, it said. 

  “The accident is caused by an illegal practice which violated the mining rules,” said Luo Lin, chief of the State Administration of Work Safety said… Zhao Tiechui, head of the State Administration of Coal Mine Safety, said that an excessive amount of explosives directly triggered the accident. 

  “The mine’s managers didn’t evacuate workers in time,” said Zhao. Police have detained three people including the coal mine’s owner, chief engineer and project manager in connection with the accident. 

  The last large coal mine blast in China was in Hunan and killed around eighteen people.

  » Read more
  • May 31, 2009 9:10 PM

• China Mine Blast Leaves 18 Dead

  

  An explosion at a warehouse for explosives and detonators at a coal mine in Hunan has killed at least 18 people. From BBC:

  The explosion was so powerful that it completely destroyed the three-storey warehouse at the mine in Hunan province in central China.

  Police are searching for the owners and investigating whether the explosives were bought and stored illegally.

  At least 3,200 people died in China’s coal mines last year, making them the deadliest in the world.

  » Read more
  • April 18, 2009 3:38 PM

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