Deconstructing deadly details from China's coal mine safety statistics
Published by MAC on 2006-01-06Deconstructing deadly details from China's coal mine safety statistics
China Labour Bulletin News Flash No. 60, Hong Kong
6th January 2006
Statistics released in the first week of the new year suggest that there was a slight but significant improvement in coal mine safety in China in 2005, but deconstructuring the aggregate figures in that report shows that bigger disasters happened more frequently and killed two to three times as many people compared with the previous year.
China Labour Bulletin once again calls on the Chinese authorities to reform the current work safety supervision system and allow miners themselves to organize their own work safety teams and take part directly in safety supervision.
The State Administration of Work Safety announced on 4 January that 5,986 miners died in 3,341 accidents in 2005, a decrease of 8.2 percent compared with 2004.
Table 1: Coal mine accidents and deaths in China
Total number of coal mine accidents (a)
Total number of deaths (b)
Year 2000
a) 2,863
b) 5,798
Year 2001
a) 3,082
b) 5,670
Year 2002
a) 4,344
b) 6,995
Year 2003
a) 4,143
b) 6,434
Year 2004
a) 3,639
b) 6,027
Year 2005
a) 3,341
b) 5,986
Source: State Administration of Work Safety