China steps up safety efforts after more workplace deaths

The Chinese government today promised things would get better after a month that saw more than 200 people die in workplace accidents.

The string of industrial deaths - mostly in the nation’s notorious mines - have focused attention on Beijing’s attitude to safety at work.

One gas explosion at a mine yesterday killed 43 miners, and another last month killed 115.

The government has taken the unprecedented step of reporting the findings of an investigation into mine safety standards in the state media.

Zhao Tiechui, deputy director of the State Administration of Work Safety Supervision, blamed mine owners and companies for the disasters, saying they had turned ‘‘a deaf ear to safety regulations and management processes’’.

‘‘The evil supporting organisations behind those unqualified mines should be dismantled,’’ Zhao said.

He said the government would launch ‘‘a massive and continuous inspection campaign’’ to see if its orders to shut down rogue mines are being followed. Yesterday’s gas explosion at the Dingsheng mine in northeast China killed 43 miners, state media said.

Also yesterday, state media said the Chengzihe mine in northeastern Heilongjiang province, where 115 workers were killed in a explosion in June, had been instructed to shut down at least seven times before the disaster.

The Fuqiang mine, in the northeastern Jilin province, where 39 workers were trapped in a pit on Thursday by an explosion, should not have been operating to begin with, safety officials said.

China, recently admitted to the World Trade Organisation, is trying to convince the world that its economic infrastructure is reliable.

But this year, more than 3,400 people have died in China’s mines, where ventilators and other basic safety equipment are often nonexistent and explosions and flooding are common.

Last year’s official death toll was 5,670, though many suggest the actual numbers could be even higher.

‘‘The figures - how reliable are they actually?’’ said Steve Tsang, director of the Asian Studies Centre at Oxford University’s St Antony’s College.

‘‘It is a large country with a lot of mines. The extent of the problems may actually be bigger,’’ Tsang said.

Tsang said the government appears to be ‘‘genuinely trying hard to improve industrial safety, but whether the policies can be implemented is another question.’’ Individual mines are hard to manage, he said, and may not have the technological capabilities to do so.

And the government’s vow to punish mine owners has resulted in a disturbing by-product: It has encouraged them to lower death tolls, flee after accidents, even spirit bodies away in the dead of night.

In the northern province of Shanxi, police found 36 bodies in four locations miles away from a gold mine hit by an explosion on June 22.

The owner, who fled, initially reported two dead. Police detained seven people suspected of hiding the bodies.

The accidents are not limited to mines. In the eastern province of Shandong, 13 people were killed and 11 injured yesterday when a pipe burst at a fertiliser plant, releasing liquid ammonia.