Seven people were killed and 12 injured in an accident on Monday afternoon at a steel and iron company in southwest China's Guizhou Province, according to an official with the provincial production safety supervision administration.

Slag fell onto workers during an overhaul of the No. 2 blast furnace at the Shuicheng Steel and Iron Corp. of Liupanshui at about 1:30. Four people were killed instantly and three died later in the hospital. Three of the 12 injured are in serious condition.

Six of the dead were local farmers and the other was the deputy chief of furnace operations at Shuicheng.

A company employee told Xinhua that the No. 14 Metallurgical Construction Corp. of the China National Nonferrous Metals Industry Corporation was carrying out the overhaul project, but locally hired farmers were doing the actual labor.

An emergency group established by the No. 14 Metallurgical Construction Corp. was continuing recovery operations as of Monday evening. Liupanshui officials were also at the scene of the accident.

On Tuesday the General Administration of Work Safety announced that in the first quarter of this year, there were 206,970 accidents leading to casualties in China, resulting in 30,597 deaths.

The number of accidents declined 12.9 percent and the death toll edged down 4.3 percent year-on-year.

(Xinhua News Agency April 5, 2005)