The coal mine explosion on Sunday that caused 134 deaths and left 15 people missing in Qitaihe, Heilongjiang Province, once again put the issue of colliery safety in the spotlight.

Too many coal mine blasts have occurred in recent years. In Qitaihe alone, three major accidents, including the one on Sunday, have occurred this year involving heavy loss of human life.

Up till November 27, 51 "extremely large coal mine accidents" have occurred across the country this year, killing 1,355 people.

The frequent tragedies have prompted the government to intensify safety measures.

Not long ago, the central authorities ordered local officials to withdraw their investment in coal mines and requested coal mine managers to go down the pit together with miners every work shift.

These measures have hit the nail on the head because they impacted on those who manage the mines. Implementation of these measures, however, is not easy. There have been reports that some of the officials had stated that they would rather lose their posts than their stakes in the mines. And whether mine owners or managers would follow the stipulation that they go down the pit with miners remains unclear. It is not yet known for sure if any of the managers had gone down the pit in Sunday's accident, but obviously none of them did, as the reported "total of 221 miners" underground apparently did not include any managers.

Besides these considerations, something on a deeper level deserves our attention the situation of the miners themselves.

According to an official from the State Administration of Work Safety, investigations found that miners would have gone down the pits even if they had known there was danger ahead.

What has compelled the miners to risk their lives like this?

The answer is their dire need for money, plus a mindset of risk taking.

Most of the miners are farmers-turned-migrant workers. They are so underpaid that they don't want to miss a single shift.

Coal has long been the main source of energy for China. It accounts for about 68 percent of the nation's energy consumption. Coal miners contribute greatly to China's economy growth. Their wages, however, have been among the lowest in the country's industrial sectors in the past 10-odd years.

During most of the 1990s the coal industry was lackluster, but it has prospered in recent years as China has suffered an acute shortage of energy supply in the latest round of its economic boom.

The nation's greedy hunger for coal has turned coal mining into a very lucrative business. Evidence of this is the sudden appearance of many billionaire mine owners in recent years. The news that a few mine owners in Shanxi China's largest coal mining province bought 20 Hummer cross-country vehicles in a group purchase in an auto fair in Beijing hit headlines across the country last month. It was also reported that there are 100-plus Bentley, Rolls Royce and Hummer autos in Shanxi, and most of them are owned by coal mine bosses.

In sharp contrast, however, the wages for coal miners remain low. The average monthly wage is less than 1,000 yuan (US$125). With such a meager income, the miners certainly wouldn't want to miss a single day of work even though they know the safety conditions in the pit are poor.

The government should do something more than imposing safety measures. For such a special industry as coal mining, which contributes greatly to the nation's economic development and involves higher risk to lives than other industries, it is necessary to stipulate standards for minimum wages and social security for coal miners.

The current distribution of wealth between coal mine owners and miners is extremely unfair. Market economy does not mean that remuneration to workers should be left totally to the supply-demand relationship in the labor market. Government intervention in this regard is popular even in Western capitalist countries.

Increasing the percentage of miners' wages in the total profits from coal mining is not only necessary to achieve justice it is also highly feasible.

The lucrative industry definitely can afford it.

(China Daily November 30, 2005)