Poverty draws Chinese to unsafe but lucrative mines

from Reuters India

By Ben Blanchard

TASHAN, China - Why anyone would choose to work in China's often deadly mining industry must surely be a mystery until you talk to people like Lu Renyan.

For him, poverty is the motivating factor, given the potential financial rewards.

Lu lives and works just a few hundred metres (yards) from the site of Monday's massive mudslide caused by a collapsed mining slag heap in China's gritty northern province of Shanxi, killing at least 128 people with the toll expected to rise significantly.

The official China Daily on Thursday quoted work safety chief Wang Jun as saying there was little hope for hundreds feared buried under the mud. It also cited witnesses as saying the village buried was home to around 1,000 people.

"I can earn 1,000 yuan ($146), 3,000 yuan or up to 5,000 yuan a month working here," Lu said, pointing to the entrance to a distinctly unsafe looking iron ore mine, which local officials say is almost certainly illegal.

Not a bad sum in a county where last year the annual net rural income was only a little more than 4,000 yuan.

"The work is hard, but it's worth it," added Lu, from a poor rural part of the southwestern metropolis of Chongqing, hundreds of kilometres from where he stands, in the foothills of Tashan.

Stagnating rural incomes have for many years fuelled a massive exodus from the Chinese countryside to wealthy coastal regions, where poorly educated farmers have flocked to work on building sites that are transforming cities such as Shanghai.

But others have gone to work in the coal, iron ore and other mines that dot the huge country, whose raw materials are needed to feed China's insatiable economic boom, despite almost constant reports of disasters in these very mines.

"This is a lot safer than working in a coal mine," said iron ore miner Pang Wenxu, in a thick country accent. "There are no gas explosions there. I'm not worried, despite this accident."

Officials earlier this year announced plans to crack down on reckless mining in this polluted region that is scattered with small mines and smelters. Yet local governments often lack the power or will to police companies that provide jobs and revenue.

Beijing has now ordered urgent checks on mines throughout the country to stem a recent upsurge in accidents, Communist Party newspaper the People's Daily said on Thursday.

The president and premier had also both promised legal action against those found responsible for the Tashan disaster, Xinhua news agency added.

SOARING PRICES

China's mines are the world's most dangerous, killing nearly 3,800 people last year, as the high demand for raw materials pushes managers to cut safety corners.

Most victims are coal miners. But strong iron ore demand has encouraged miners to dig up even low-grade ore, often with little regard for safety or the environment.

Soaring commodity prices have drawn workers in, and made it worthwhile for unscrupulous people to take the risk of running mines the government has refused to license for safety reasons.

Many of the dead at Tashan were migrant workers, whose identities might never be known -- if their bodies are ever recovered -- as they worked in a shady industry not known for keeping accurate records of its staff or their next of kin.

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