China pledges ‘crackdown on cover-ups’ after recent deadly mining disaster
- Country’s top safety chief promises special investigation of under-reported mining accidents
- Four officials are being investigated for a suspected a cover-up after a recent fatal mine accident in northeast China
China’s top safety watchdog pledged to crack down on cover-ups of deadly mine accidents as four officials were placed under investigation in northeast China following one of the country’s latest mining disasters.
Wang Xiangxi, head of China’s Ministry of Emergency Management, the country’s top agency responsible for worker safety, called for a special investigation of under-reported mining accidents, according to a statement published on the ministry website Monday night.
Local officials tried to cover up scale of Chinese mine disaster, report finds
“(We should) seriously carry out a special investigation to ‘uncover’ cover-ups of mining accidents, set up a joint mechanism to crack down on cover-ups, and increase rewards for whistle-blowers,” Wang was quoted as saying in a Monday meeting.
Wang said the industry should “make curbing serious accidents a top priority, and solidly carry out special investigations and rectification actions for the hidden dangers behind major mining accidents”.
02:39
Death toll climbs to 6 in China’s Inner Mongolia coal mine collapse
The accident in late June at the Honglin coal mine in Fuxin, Liaoning province, 600km (373 miles) northeast of Beijing, killed seven people and injured seven others.
The disaster was not made public until days later, on July 4, when a local work safety committee said it had discovered the casualties and started an investigation. The governor of Liaoning travelled to the site to investigate the following day.
The four Liaoning officials under investigation had been responsible for various levels of approval and safety supervision at the mine, according to an official announcement.
On Sunday, the Liaoning Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection said Lai Huaping, Fuxin’s deputy mayor in charge of coal transformation, was among the officials being investigated in a suspected cover up.
02:20
At least 2 dead, 53 still missing after open-pit coal mine collapse in northern China
In April, the Emergency Management Department in Hebei province reported that a county mayor and a party secretary were being investigated for hiding the number of deaths in a mining accident last September.
In late June, China Newsweek, a magazine affiliated with the China News Service, published an investigation revealing that an iron mine in Xinzhou, in the central province of Shanxi, had hidden multiple deadly mine accidents between 2007 and 2022 that had left at least 17 miners dead.
‘Coal, this gift from God’: inside the illegal people’s mines of Indonesia
The local government in Xinzhou said later that it would investigate the coal mine. On Monday, the Emergency Management Department in Shanxi announced it would conduct safety inspections of coal mines throughout Xinzhou.
The accidents happened in four different provinces, resulting in 63 deaths. A total of 421 people held accountable by authorities.
