One million people in north China's coal-rich Shanxi Province will move out of the coalmine sinking areas and shanty towns before 2008, said an official with the provincial government.

Shanxi Governor Yu Youjun made the remarks at a meeting on shanty town reconstruction, adding that the provincial government, in cooperation with state-owned coal enterprises, will spend 6.87 billion yuan (US$859 million) to help 600,000 people move out of the shanty towns and coalmine sinking areas before 2008.

The province reclaimed 2.26 million square meters of sinking land last year when about 37,000 families moved out and are now living in new houses.

Yu noted that in the 2006-2010 period, Shanxi will speed up renovating shanty towns, and build 6 million square meters of new houses for people in the sinking areas.

As the country's largest coal rich province, Shanxi faces the danger of expanded sinking areas, due to long-term and intensified coal mining.

Also to enhance work safety, the province shut down 3,550 illegal coal mines and closed 2,517 illegal mines of other natural resources last year, according to Zhang Huaiwen, director of the Shanxi Provincial Department of Land and Resources.

Meanwhile, 196 people were punished for violating Party and government disciplines and 198 others were punished on criminal charges, Zhang said.

A total of 476 people died in 149 fatal coal mine accidents in the province last year. Zhang pledged a more severe crackdown on illegal mining activities this year.

China is the world's largest coal producer and consumer. The country produced 2.1 billion tons of coal to drive its fast-growing economy in 2005, a quarter of which came from Shanxi.

(Xinhua News Agency February 18, 2007)