ZHENGZHOU, April 23 (Xinhua) -- Li Chengyu, governor of China's most populous province of Henan, said the recent spate of coal mine accidents were "very harrowing" and penalties should be increased to deter those responsible for the accidents.

Speaking at a routine government meeting on Monday, Li said 89 people had been killed in 11 colliery accidents in the province since the beginning of the year, two and a half times more than the number of fatalities over the same period last year.

Li said local government officials and mine managers should learn their lesson after paying such heavy prices.

On April 16, at least 33 miners were left missing and feared dead, after an explosion ripped through the Wangzhuang Mine in Zhouzhuang town, Baofeng county, in Henan.

An investigation revealed that the mine was shut down before the Spring Festival in February but had resumed operation without government consent.

Cao Xinyi, the owner of the mine, and five other mine managers,fled after the accident, but were eventually captured.

"It shows the mine owners have no respect for the law and miners' lives," Li said.

Li said that some county and township officials, fearing the closure of mines would dent GDP growth and government revenue, had failed to supervise the mines. When accidents happened, they chose not to report the deaths for fear that they may be removed from their posts.

"Warnings and fines are only symbolic and ineffective. Mine owners and officials alike have to pay for what they failed to do," Li said.

Coal mine accidents killed 4,746 people in China in 2006. From March 1 to April 19 this year, 204 people have been missing or killed in 22 mine accidents, said Li Yizhong, Minister of the State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS), on Monday at a national meeting on coal mine gas management in Chongqing, southwest China.

China has set a goal to reduce the death rate to 2.1 for every million tons of coal produced by 2010, down from 2.81 in 2005.

The rate of fatalities per tons of coal mined in 2005 in China was 70 times worse than in the United States and seven times higher than in Russia and India.