Chinese Civil Servants Feeling the Heat for Mining Disasters

More than 5,000 Chinese civil servants have been punished for their activities in just under 100,000 illegal mining cases since 2005, statistics released by China’s Ministry of Land and Resources (MLR) have revealed.

China has investigated 89,926 cases of illegal mining, 1,907 case involving illegal trading of prospecting and mineral rights, and 5,795 cases of mining beyond boundary lines by the end of 2006, Xinhua reported Jia Quhai, a senior mining resources development official,as saying.

2,154 people were imprisoned for illegal coal mining, Quhai laimed.

There were also signs that this crackdown was having a positive effect. “Generally speaking, the number of cases of illegal mining are declining sharply and mine resources are exploited in a more orderly manner,” Quhai said.

Room for concern remains. Quhai added that some officials “still haven’t realised the graveness of the situation, and supervision and institutional construction remains weak.”

An average of miners die daily in Chinese coal mines, Xinhua claimed.