China Labour Bulletin appears in the following article. Copyright remains with the original publisher.
By Wang Ying
Aug. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Chinese authorities stepped up efforts to rescue 172 miners trapped in a flooded coal pit for five days and gave temporary shelter to relatives of the workers after angry family members clashed with police.
China National Coal Group Corp. and China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. supplied pumps and drilling rigs to the site in the eastern province of Shandong, the Beijing-based State Administration of Work Safety said. Pumps capable of drawing 1,000 cubic meters of water an hour started operating at the mine today, the safety administration said.
China, the world's biggest coal producer and consumer, has struggled to rein in industrial accidents that have led to the country having one of the world's worst mine-safety records. On average, 13 miners lost their lives every day last year.
"Coal miners' safety in China is put very much second-place to the mine owners' profits,'' said Robin Munro, research director at China Labour Bulletin, a Hong-Kong based group focusing on workers rights. "China's coal mining industry is one of the world's most dangerous.''
A crowd of 200 people, angered at the lack of information from the pit's owners, toppled an iron fence at the mine on Aug. 19 after hearing rumors that rescue efforts had been called off, according to Agence France-Presse. Relatives scuffled with police and some threw rocks at the main administration building. No injuries were reported.
Counseling Relatives
The local government is settling family members of trapped workers who rushed to the mine, and has arranged counseling for relatives in an attempt to ensure order at the rescue site, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported today.
The miners have been stranded in the coal pit operated by Huayuan Mining in the city of Xintai since Aug. 17, after heavy rain caused reservoirs to overflow and breached a levee. Rescue workers on Aug. 18 brought out 584 of 756 miners who had been working underground at the time, Xinhua said. Nine miners are trapped in a separate pit nearby.
Coal mine accidents killed 4,746 people in China in 2006, according to Xinhua. Seven miners died on Aug. 11 after a cave- in at a mine in the western Xinjiang Autonomous Region, Xinhua said. In June, a gas blast in a coal mine in the northern Shanxi province killed 13 people.
In November 2005, 171 miners were killed in a blast in a coal pit in northeast Heilongjiang province, according to statistics from the work safety administration.
Surging Demand
Surging energy demand in the world's fastest-growing major economy has boosted coal prices in China, prompting mine owners to keep open unsafe mines. The price of coal at Qinhuangdao, China's largest port for the fuel, has risen to records as utilities increase purchases to meet peak summer power demand.
"The local governments and coal miners are sacrificing the miners' benefits, their lives, to profit from the huge energy demand,'' Munro said.
The government brought its deadline for closing 10,000 small collieries forward by six months to Dec. 31, Xinhua said July 11., citing Li Yizhong, director of the work safety administration. The government had originally pledged to close the mines between August 2005 and June 2008, it said.
Accidents at small coal mines claimed 3,431 lives last year, according to the administration.
Each year natural disasters, accidents and epidemics cause 200,000 deaths and cost China an average 600 billion yuan ($78 billion) in damage and losses, the government's emergency management agency said in March.