Campaign to boost safety in workplaces

The Ministry of Emergency Management launched a three-month, nationwide work safety campaign on Saturday, targeting problems in major industries such as the production of dangerous chemicals.

Though the number of work safety accidents, including large and major ones, has fallen this year, work safety issues are still severe and complicated, the ministry said in a document announcing the campaign.

The campaign will focus on the production of dangerous chemicals and aims to rectify problems in the work safety accountability system and the identification of potential hazards, and further crack down on acts that violate the law, the document said.

Local governments and relevant departments should be responsible for assessing the potential risks in workplaces, and punish those who violate the law and enterprises that lack credibility.

In the document, the ministry also called for measures to establish long-term mechanisms that enable self-inspections of potential risks and problems in work safety procedures to ensure the safety of lives and property.

Moreover, it urged local authorities to improve rectifications in the safety of coal mines, fire controls, transportation, construction, urban gas supply and the production of fireworks.

It also stressed that local authorities should open hotlines and encourage the public, especially staff members of related enterprises and their relatives, to report major safety risks and illegal acts.

The Work Safety Committee of the State Council will organize inspection groups to scrutinize major industries involved, and it will include enforcement of the campaign in provincial authorities' performance assessments.

The project follows instructions from Premier Li Keqiang to make safety the top priority during production.

The State Council said on Nov 13 that lessons should be learned from the deadly blast at a chemical industry park in Xiangshui, Jiangsu province, on March 21. The explosion, which claimed 78 lives and injured more than 600 people, has been identified as a major work safety accident that exposed the failures of local authorities and departments, the Cabinet said in a statement.

In October, 13 accidents occurred in different industries, according to a report released by the ministry on its website on Nov 1.

Two people died and 11 others are still missing after a polymetallic mine collapse in Nandan county, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, on Oct 28.

The Work Safety Committee recently interviewed local governments and related departments, asking them to take action to prevent major accidents, the ministry said.

Local governments were urged during the interview to better manage mineral resources in Nandan through measures like closing mines with low productivity and poor work safety.

More recently, 11 miners were trapped underground on Tuesday night after a fire broke out in a coal mine in Jiaxiang county, Shandong province. They were rescued on Thursday.