China to boost work safety before key meeting

BEIJING - China's work safety authority said Thursday that it will launch a nationwide work safety inspection campaign this month to prevent major deadly accidents.

In a statement to local governments, the State Council Work Safety Commission said a special inspection campaign will be conducted across the country from mid- to late-September.

The commission will send special inspection teams to 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, as well as the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, to oversee the work safety measures taken by governments at different levels and major enterprises.

Inspectors will examine whether local governments have planned and implemented security measures aimed at ensuring social stability during the period when the Communist Party of China convenes its 18th National Congress later this year.

Random safety inspections over mines, buildings and construction sites, along with those over the road, river and marine traffic, fire service, hazardous chemicals, fireworks, civil explosives and metallurgy sectors, will be conducted during the campaign, according to the commission.

The inspection campaign aims to bring down the number of accidents as well as deaths caused by accidents.

The month of August was a bloody one for China, as the list of Chinese people killed in accidents grew almost daily.

Victims included 45 miners who were killed in a coal mine explosion in the city of Panzhihua, southwestern Sichuan Province, on August 29 and another 36 people who burned to death on August 26 when a double-decker sleeper bus rammed into a methanol-loaded tanker near Yan'an, northwestern Shaanxi Province.