Society
Another mine accident is just deja vu
By Hu Yinan (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-03-31 07:25
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Colliery crackdown
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 Rescuers wait for their turn to pump out water from the Wangjialing Coal Mine. More than 150 workers were trapped when underground water fl ooded tunnels. [YANG SHIZHONG / CHINA DAILY] |
For years, the coal-rich Shanxi has been troubled by a string of mine tragedies. About 75 percent of them were in illegal, mostly small, private collieries. Former Shanxi governor Yu Youjun launched a crackdown campaign that closed thousands of unlicensed businesses.
Yu's tenure came to an abrupt end in August 2007 following a slave-labor scandal involving illegally-run brick kilns and mines, while his successor, Meng Xuenong, quit just 14 months later after 277 were killed in a collapsed unlicensed iron ore reservoir.
In a bid to transform the coal industry, last April Shanxi's new governor, Wang Jun, an ex-miner and former SAWS director, started the largest campaign against small collieries this province has ever seen. The controversial endeavor aims to upgrade the coal sector by slashing the number of companies from 2,200 to around 100 by the end of this year, and cutting collieries from 2,598 to 1,000 by 2011.
By the end of 2009, the number of coal firms in Shanxi dropped to 130 - 50 percent are shareholding enterprises, 20 percent are State-owned and the rest are private firms.
Provincial authorities believe the campaign will reduce the risk of disasters, and give Shanxi a cleaner future and better reputation. Nationwide, similar efforts have already helped reduce the coal industry's death toll from almost 6,000 in 2005 to less than 2,700 last year.
However, as the focus shifts to large State-owned mines, much remains unchanged.
China had prioritized economic progress for years. It was not until the turn of the century that the central government shifted its vision to "scientific development", the emphasis of which rests more on the environment than economic pursuit.
State-owned enterprises too often have their own indicators of success, though. For ChinaCoal's division 63, that meant finishing the job early.
The division's units were evaluated on their daily progress, to the point that a giant golden plate hanging inside the division office, where the rescue headquarters now sits, reads: "Strive for number one."
Chen Chuanping, deputy governor of Shanxi and chief of rescue operations, said the accident "resulted from just that (mentality)", instead of focusing on employee safety and project quality.
According to its coal industry restructure plan, Shanxi will have just 83 companies with annual production capacities of between 3 million tons and 10 million tons. Wangjialing mine, which is under construction and was due to start production five months ahead of schedule in October, is one of them.
As a major project approved by the provincial government, the mine's annual capacity is planned at 6 million tons and could keep producing coal for more than 100 years.
