Improving the safety education of coal miners has become an urgent issue in China's production safety as all major coal mining accidents last year were caused by irregular operation, said Zhao Tiechui, vice-director of the State Administration of Production Safety, Thursday.

The 51 major accidents that each left more than 10 people dead last year were caused by coal miners who did not obey safety regulations, said Zhao at a conference on national production safety.

Violations of safety regulations are serious at coal mines, especially small private ones, where over 95 percent of the workers have an education background below junior high school and 30 percent of them have only a primary school education or are illiterate.

More efforts would, said Zhao, be exerted on publicizing the policies on production safety among coal miners to help them improve safety awareness and avoid transgressions in operation.

Source: Xinhua