During the past decade, the rate of coal mine incidents have significantly decreased in China. But still a senior work safety official on May 22, 2014 said that more coal mines will be shut down.
Figures have revealed that the number of coal mine accidents have declined from 800,000 in 2004 to 300,000 in 2013. Even the number of deaths have been decreased from 136,000 to 69,000 over the same period. The minister of State Administration of Work Safety Yang Dongliang at a news conference said that the death rate per 1 million metric tons of coal has decreased from 3.08 to 0.288 which has marked a decline of 90 percent.
The Minister added that the coal production in 2013 reached 3.7 billion tons and the supply in china has exceeded the demand due to which the prices of coal have come down and has raised the costs for the coal enterprises. Yang added, “Some coal enterprises are suffering losses, especially small coal mines that have greater safety hazards. “
The minister also said that they are strengthening their effort to close down the small coal mines. He also said that roughly about 2,000 small coal mines will be closed in 2014 and also in 2015. At present there are about 13,000 coal mines in China.
Photo Credits: Mining
