Four county-level officials from north China's Shanxi Province have been dismissed from their posts in the Party in the wake of three coal mine accidents that claimed 65 lives, according to the provincial government on Friday.

The Communist Party of China (CPC) Committee of Taiyuan, the provincial capital, has removed Wang Qinghe from the post of deputy secretary of the CPC Committee of Wangbolin District in Taiyuan. Ning Keqiang was deprived of his membership of the district CPC committee following two mine accidents that left 21 miners dead in late October and early this month.

The Jinzhong City CPC Committee has removed Gong Qi from the post of deputy secretary of the CPC Committee of Lingshi County and Feng Kaicheng was deprived of his membership of the county CPC committee for a coal mine fire that claimed 34 lives this month.

The Shanxi Provincial CPC Committee has also suggested that the four people should be removed from their administrative posts, said a spokesman for the provincial government on Friday.

Wang is the acting head of Wangbolin District and Ning is Wang's deputy. Gong is the head of Lingshi County government and Feng is the deputy.

These four people were removed from their posts in the Party according to regulations that stipulate officials in charge should be punished for fatal accidents, the spokesman said.

Local governments are responsible for managing and supervising coal mining businesses and other production activities in areas under their jurisdiction, the spokesman said.

The four people will face further punishments once investigations into the three accident are concluded, according to the spokesman.

Explosive blast that occurred in the Pagou Coal Mine in Taiyuan's Wanbolin District on Oct. 24 left 11 miners dead. Preliminary investigations show that the mine was operating illegally because its production safety and coal mining certificates expired at the end of December last year.

A coal mine in Jijiagou Village, also based in Wanbolin District, was flooded on Nov. 7, killing 10 miners. The owner of the coal mine ran away after the flooding. Investigators said that the coal mine was operating illegally without a production permit.

A fatal fire occurred in the Nanshan Coal Mine in Lingshi County on Nov. 12, claiming 34 lives. The production licence of the Nanshan Coal Mine expired at the end of last year and rescuers found it had neither a gas monitoring system nor a life-saving appliance in the shaft. The mine contractor escaped after the accident and is still at large.

This is the second time within six months that county-level officials have been dismissed for fatal coal mine accidents in Shanxi Province.

The Standing Committee of the Zuoyun County People's Congress approved the resignations filed by Zhang Mingsheng, former head of the county government, and his deputy Shi Lu, who was in charge of local coal production, in June.

Zhang was also removed from the post of deputy secretary of the Zuoyun County committee of the CPC, and Shi was deprived of his membership of the CPC county committee after mine management attempted to cover up the fatal accident by reporting that only five miners were trapped.

Shanxi provincial government has ordered safety check-ups in local coal mines starting from Friday and mines with an annual output of 90,000 tons and lower will be closed within 20 days if they are found not to meet safety requirements.

China has issued specific new punishments for government officials to tackle production safety problems.

Government officials will face warnings, demotions, dismissal and prosecution for production safety transgressions, according to new rules issued on Wednesday.

The interim rules, jointly issued by China's State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS) and the Ministry of Supervision, define 25 types of punishable acts by government officials and 18 types by executives of state-owned businesses, ranging from approving projects that do not meet safety requirements, failure to address unsafe production activities and covering up production accidents, to executives allowing their businesses to continue to operate after their licenses have been revoked or they have been ordered to stop production.

In September, China reported a 26.1-percent rise in coal mine accidents over October and a 44.4-percent rise in coal mine fatalities.

Source: Xinhua