Death toll from work accidents in China down 14% in Q1

BEIJING, April 17 (Xinhua) -- The death toll from all work place accidents in China fell 14.3 percent year-on-year in the first quarter, the nation's top work safety official said on Thursday.

The figure includes road accidents. In China, ordinary car accidents are included in the tally of work place accidents.

In total, 19,248 people were killed in 113,424 accidents, which were 18.3 percent fewer in number than a year earlier, said Wang Jun, head of the State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS).

The toll from coal mine accidents fell 24.5 percent, while the death toll from road accidents slid 13.4 percent, said Wang, without elaborating.

"Despite the decline in the death toll, the work safety situation was still grim," he told local work safety officials during a televised conference here.

The number of fatal accidents that killed 10 to 29 people surged, he said. In total, 420 people were killed in 29 such accidents, 40 percent and 70.6 percent, respectively, more than the same period last year.

Illegal production hasn't been totally rooted out despite frequent crackdowns, as it was blamed for the deaths of 111 people in 16 mine accidents alone.

During the first quarter, the work safety regulators also reported the cover-up of six coal mine accidents that each killed more than two people.

"We should have a sense of crisis and urgency," said Wang. "We also need to keep a clear head and avoid blind optimism and recklessness."

The safety agency is launching a 100-day nationwide campaign on work safety that will run from mid-April to late July and focus on preventing fatal accidents and reducing the death toll, according to the conference.

The agency will send 13 working groups to supervise inspections, which will focus on industries such as mining, non-ferrous metals, hazardous chemicals and firecrackers, as well as sites that are vulnerable to natural disasters.

"The supervision groups should optimize the use of their time to uncover major safety loopholes and urge timely action to ensure safe production," Wang told the meeting.

Last year, 101,480 people died in all incidents that were classified as industrial accidents, down 10.1 percent from 2006 and 27.2 percent from the record high in 2002, the agency said in January.