$195m payout for tunnellers upheld
A court in Hangzhou has upheld a ground-breaking lower court decision awarding 208 million yuan (HK$195 million) in damages to 230 workers who contracted a lung disease after working on a tunnelling project.
Zhejiang province's Supreme People's Court agreed with a lower court in Wenzhou that the workers, who contracted silicosis after working on a road construction project in Liaoning province in 1993, were entitled to the compensation.
Ten of the workers have already died.
'This is beyond our expectations,' said a lawyer for the group, referring to the court decision.
'This is the biggest compensation of its kind,' he said.
Two officials of the Taishun County Tunnel Engineering Company, a subcontractor on the road project, have already been sentenced to seven years and five years in prison.
The 230 workers, most of them farmers from Taishun county on the outskirts of Wenzhou in Zhejiang province, filed the suit in a Wenzhou court, accusing the tunnelling company of negligence.
They were among about 400 people employed by the company to dig the Wujialing Tunnel for the Shenyang-Benxi Highway in Liaoning province.
They claimed no face masks or protective equipment was given to them when they drilled through rock with a high silicon dioxide content. Inhalation of the dioxide can lead to silicosis.
Workers will each be awarded compensation of between 38,900 yuan and 389,600 yuan, according to their lawyer. 'This is important. Their conditions are getting worse and worse,' he said.
The Zhejiang Supreme Court also ruled that the Taishun County Tunnel Engineering Company, five of its senior officials and shareholders, the Shenyang Municipal Mining Bureau and the Liaoning Provincial Highway Department, were responsible for providing compensation.
An official at the Liaoning Highway Bureau said he was unaware of the case. A Shenyang Mining Bureau spokesman had no immediate comment and officials at the Taishun County Tunnel Engineering Company could not be reached for comment.
