Chinese coal mines are some of the most dangerous places to work in the world. In November alone there have been three major accidents reported, the most recent occurring on the 13th, claiming at least 34 lives. Accident figures from China’s mines far exceed those of other countries, and that does not include the many that go unreported for years.
Energy needs
China’s economy is growing at an unprecedented rate. The gross domestic product (GDP) has shown a 10 percent increase on last year, and this development needs energy to sustain itself. China gets its energy from coal. At no point in the past 50 years has coal accounted for less than 70 per cent of China’s energy demand, and this dependence is set to stay above the 50 per cent mark until 2050.
Alternative energy sources, such as hydroelectricity, constitute less than 10 percent of China’s primary energy resources. Nuclear energy is the only viable alternative at the moment, but following the Fukushima disaster in Japan, concerns about nuclear are high.
Coal mining has always been a risky business but China’s statistics show a bleak disregard for basic safety and policy within the industry. China mines 35 per cent of the world’s coal but is responsible for 80 per cent of coal mine deaths worldwide.
According to official statistics, more than 250,000 Chinese miners have died in accidents since the People’s Republic of China was initiated in 1949 but official statistics by no means reflect the actual number of deaths. With compensation to pay and illegal mining commonplace, coal mine owners have a tendency to under-report numbers to the officials.
People should not be “naïve” about Chinese mining statistics, warns Professor Tim Wright, of Sheffield University, “I don’t believe, and nobody believes, that they cover all fatalities, so the absolute numbers have to be regarded with a bit of caution.”
The past five months of accidents as reported by BBC News
Underground
There are two types of mining – surface and sub-surface mining – and a large proportion of Chinese mines are the more dangerous sub-surface type. Gas explosions and tunnel collapses are the most common accidents. Poor ventilation in the mines creates a build up of gases in the tunnels that poison workers or deprive them of oxygen, causing asphyxiation.
Ignited methane gas is responsible for most explosions in mines, but coal dust explosions are more violent. Dust can also cause serious lung disease, such as silicosis, asbestosis and pneumoconiosis (also known as black lung disease).
Most accidents are a result of poor safety standards and an untrained workforce as the majority of Chinese coal miners are migrant workers who are among the most vulnerable and exploited social groups in China. Unable to unionise due to a ban on independent worker unions, their monthly payments are often as low as several hundred yuan (a mere tens of pounds) when the national average is 4,300 yuan. An American miner can expect $100,000 a year for work in a mine 100 times safer.
In 2010, 2,631 Chinese miners died in accidents and in the same year only 48 American miners suffered the same fate.
Productivity in Chinese mines is much lower than other countries. Australian mines achieved an output of 13,297 tonnes of coal per worker in 2005, whereas Chinese workers accounted for 590 tonnes each in the same year. To keep up with demand mines are overcrowded and this results in the high number of fatalities when accidents happen.
Improvements
Over the past six or seven years, however, Chinese mines appear to have become much safer. National statistics indicate that fatalities fell by two thirds in the period 2003-4 when output doubled.
“The government has, to some extent, slightly lessened its emphasis on economic development at all a costs. They are taking at least a little bit more account of social issues,” says Wright.
Beijing has strengthened the regulatory framework by lowering the acceptable level of deaths in mines. According to the 11th Five-Year Plan, the target was to “cut the ratio of fatalities to every one million tonnes of coal produced to fewer than 1.6 deaths by 2010 from 2.81 deaths in 2005.” Figures vary, but suggest this has been achieved, with 0.89 deaths per million tonnes in 2010. The US rate is 0.04.
There has also been a major crackdown on illegal town and village mines (TVEs). These primitive mines have fatality rates three or four times higher than the modern state-subsidised mines and account for a third of China’s coal output. A major constraint in the government’s attempts to improve safety is that these illegal mines, although not safe, make a significant contribution to local economies.
Wright said, “The local officials and the Chinese press talk a lot about corruption, there’s no question that that exists… but I think it’s not simply that local living standards depend on mining. One miner in North China, when they closed the mines in his area, was asked whether the air was now pure and he answered, ‘Yes. The air is much nicer to breathe but you can’t eat air’”.
Image courtesy of LHOON on flickr