A senior official from south China's Guangdong Province disclosed Saturday that its government is determined to terminate coal mining production in the province.

Tong Xing, vice governor of Guangdong and head of the provincial Safety Production Supervision Bureau, made the remark when inspecting the Daxing Coal Mine of Meizhou City, which was flooded on Aug. 7 last year with a loss of 123 lives underground.

After the accident, 22 people responsible were penalized in accordance with the disciplines of the Communist Party of China and codes of local provincial government, and another 41 were dealt with criminal charges for dereliction of duty, bribery, or detention. Moreover, 366 mines owned by 81 mining firms in Meizhou City were closed in the investigation supervised by Tong.

Meizhou is one of the coal mining bases in the southern China economic powerhouse. Prior to the mining industry rectification in the city, mining had been halted permanently in another mining city of Shaoguan in the province.

Tong urged supervision departments to make sure the mines are closed, and miners helped to find alternative jobs.

(Xinhua News Agency March 20, 2006)