It is difficult to understand the reasons behind China's frequent coal mine accidents.

A low standard of mining equipment and facilities, a lack of safety awareness, lenient legal regulations, and loose law enforcement have all been blamed.

Low levels of compensation for dead workers' families that do not match potential profits from mining, and government inertia in reacting to safety violations also account for many coal mine tragedies.

While these factors complicate the issue, it does not mean the Gordian knot cannot be cut.

Policy-makers are well aware of these problems and have taken comprehensive measures to tackle them.

A ready example is the promise made by the central government earlier this year to spend 3 billion yuan (US$360 million) to improve equipment in the country's major State coal mines.

Some local governments have raised the compensation levels for a coal mine death to up to 200,000 yuan (US$24,000), many times higher than previous standards.

In February, the central government elevated the State Administration of Work Safety to a cabinet-level department to increase its power in supervising production safety.

Despite these efforts, however, the number of casualties in coal mine accidents has risen in the first five months of this year. Official statistics show the figure rose by 9.7 per cent year-on-year to 2,187. By the end of May there had been 23 major coal mine accidents, with each claiming more than 10 lives, a rise of 43 per cent over the same period last year.

This indicates something is wrong with our efforts to curb such accidents.

A recent examination tour by a task force from the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) provides us with a hint of why these measures have not met our expectations. The team discovered serious corruption among coal mine safety managers. This corruption also involves a number of government officials and coal mine owners.

The logic behind this is simple: Government officials protect coal mine owners and help them circumvent laws and are in return rewarded with money.

It is for this reason that many dangerous mines continue to operate despite the best efforts to improve safety.

A small group of corrupt officials in the government are thus able to nullify all the efforts that we have made.

Corruption is the most poisonous issue that must be solved if we are to improve coal mine safety.

Many previous tragedies and current cases back up the findings of the NPC team. In Loudi, Central China's Hunan Province, for example, a municipal leader has confessed that there are many corrupt deals in the coal mining industry.

In one example, a gas explosion killed 18 workers in a coal mine in Qitaihe in Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province. It was then discovered that the mine is owned by a deputy director of the local bureau of work safety supervision.

Without rooting out these corrupt officials, our efforts to reduce coal mine casualties will get nowhere.

Five central departments jointly released a new circular on Monday requiring corrupt officials to be "severely" punished.

The determination of the ministries is clear. Their co-ordination is also praise-worthy. But most crucially they have stopped short of pointing out practical ways to bring this about.

There are no easy solutions. But two methods, at least, will well serve our anti-corruption campaigns: Strengthened judicial power and more media coverage.

Both will help prevent man-made coal mine tragedies, and these solutions are more powerful than empty calls from the government and new legal requirements.

(China Daily June 22, 2005)