The Work Safety Situation in the First Half of 2003

The State Administration of Work Safety

July 25, 2003

In the first half of this year, 487,402 accidents of various types had occurred nationwide, causing 60,292 fatalities, of which:

Coalmines: 1,646 injurious/fatal accidents causing 2,798 fatalities, an increase of 98 accidents or 6.3% and a decrease of 32 fatalities or 1.1% as compared with the same period of previous year;

Non-coal mines: 863 injurious/fatal accidents causing 963 fatalities, an increase of 144 accidents or 20.0% and 21 fatalities or 2.2% as compared with the same period of previous year;

Non-mining enterprises: 3,208 injurious/fatal accidents causing 2,736 fatalities, a decrease of 154 accidents or 4.6% and an increase of 279 fatalities or 11.4% as compared with the same period of previous year;

Fire accidents: 144,736 accidents causing 1,403 fatalities, a decrease of 12,559 accidents or 8.0% and 21 fatalities or 1.5% as compared with the same period of previous year;

Road traffic accidents: 330,763 accidents causing 48,003 fatalities, a decrease of 51,926 accidents or 13.6% and 4,322 fatalities or 8.3% as compared with the same period of previous year;

Waterborne traffic accidents: 309 accidents causing 148 people dead or missing, a decrease of 51 accidents or 14.2% and 9 people dead/missing or 4.7% as compared with the same period of previous year;

Off-train accidents: 5,831 injurious/fatal accidents causing 4,052 fatalities, a decrease of 43 accidents or 0.7% and 49 fatalities or 1.2% as compared with the same period of previous year.

In general, the work safety situation in the first half of this year nationwide was relatively stable, which is indicated by the following:

The total number of various types of injurious/fatal accidents had decreased. In the first half of this year, a total of 487,000 accidents of various types had occurred causing 60,000 fatalities, a decrease of 64,000 accidents or 11.7% and 4,346 fatalities or 6.7% as compared with the same period of previous year.

The number of fatalities nationwide caused by very severe accidents had decreased. In the first half of this year, a total of 68 very severe accidents, which by definition causes 10 or more fatalities per accident, had occurred causing1,236 fatalities. The number of accidents had increased by 5, but the fatalities had decreased by 10 or 0.8%, as compared with the same period of previous year.

The work safety situation in some key industries had turned for the better. Under the circumstances of coal production increase of 120 million tons as compared with the same period of previous year, the fatalities caused by accidents in coalmines had decreased by 32 in the first half of this year, where 122 severe accidents each causing 3 to 9 fatalities had occurred with 528 fatalities, a decrease of 22 accidents or 15.3% and 127 fatalities or 19.4% respectively, and 23 very severe accidents each causing 10 and more fatalities had occurred with 534 fatalities, a decrease of 6 accidents or 20.7% and 70 fatalities or 11.6%, respectively. The fatality rate per million tons of coal production in coalmines nationwide was 3.824, decreasing by 0.817 as compared with the same period of previous year. The fatality rate of road traffic accidents per 10,000 motor vehicles was about 11.8, decreasing by 1.9 as compared with the same period of previous year. Very severe accidents each causing 10 and more fatalities had not occurred in railway operation, nor had flight accidents causing injuries or fatalities occurred in the civil aviation sector.

The work safety situation in some provinces was relatively stable. During the first half of this year, no very severe accidents each causing 10 and more fatalities had occurred in Beijing, Tianjin, Inner Mongolia, Jilin, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Hainan, Tibet and Xinjiang.

The work safety situation in the first half of this year had become stable nationwide in general, but the situation in some areas and sectors was still serious due to the imbalanced development of work safety there. Firstly, the number of especially severe accidents had tended upwards. In the first half of this year, 7 especially severe accidents each causing 30 and more fatalities had occurred with 349 fatalities nationwide, an increase of 4 accidents and 58 fatalities as compared with the same period of previous year, of which, 4 such accidents had occurred in coalmines causing 231 fatalities, plus one fire accident causing 33 fatalities, one road traffic accident causing 32 fatalities and one waterborne traffic accident causing 53 fatalities. Secondly, very severe accidents in some industries had not been effectively brought under control, with relatively more accidents occurring in coalmines, road and waterborne traffic.

Coalmines had suffered 23 very severe accidents causing 534 fatalities, which represented a decrease as compared with the same period of previous year, but accounted for 33.8% and 43.2% respectively of the total number of accidents and fatalities nationwide. Very severe accidents had mainly occurred in small coalmines with 15 occurrences causing 298 fatalities, accounting for 65.2% and 55.8% respectively of the total number of accidents and fatalities in coalmines. The reasons for frequent accidents were mainly that, driven by the attempt for financial interest, some state-owned coalmines had over stretched their capacity for more production and some small coalmines already banned and closed had illegally resumed operation, and still some coalmines had not implemented relevant safety instructions of the mine supervision authority and continued operation in violation of relevant laws and regulations, resulting in very severe accidents.

There were 28 very severe road traffic accidents, causing 420 fatalities - an increase of 4 accidents and 54 fatalities as compared with the same period of previous year, accounting for about 40% of the national total respectively. Most of the very severe road traffic accidents had occurred with passenger vehicles, 19 such accidents in total causing 284 fatalities, accounting respectively for 67.9% and 67.6% of the total number of very severe road traffic accidents nationwide. Most of road traffic accidents had occurred before and after the Spring Festival and during the first 20 days of June, and the main reasons for the accidents were driving and overloading in violation of relevant regulations.

Very severe waterborne traffic accidents had tended upwards. There were 11 very severe accidents occurring in waterborne transportation, fishing operation and other vessels, causing 175 people dead/missing, an increase of 8 accidents or 266.7% and 134 people dead/missing or 326.8% respectively as compared with the same period of previous year. The main reasons for frequent occurrences of very severe accidents in waterborne traffic were illegal shipping operation by unlicensed vessels, illegal passenger carrying and risky fishing operation.