East China's Shandong Province reported remarkable achievements in coal mine production safety last year with sharply decreasing accidents and deaths.

The aggregate raw coal output in Shandong amounted to 131 million tons last year without any serious coal mine accidents, said Wang Ziqi, head of the provincial bureau of coal mine safety supervision.

The official said the death toll of coal mine accidents in Shandong dropped to 33 in 2005 and no accidents involved more than three deaths.

The death rate for every one million tons of coal was already reduced to 0.25, compared with the country's average of 2.81.

Wang said the province has attached great importance to coal mine production safety work and made Shandong the province for safest coal mine production in China for a consecutive five years.

By the end of 2005, 198 coal mines in Shandong reported production safety for more than 1,000 days, accounting for 60.7 percent of the province's total, in which Ezhuang Mine of Xinkuang Group has been running without any accidents for more than 5,000 days.

Source: Xinhua