China begins a nationwide workplace safety inspection

Almaty. September 6. Silkroadnews - China begins a nationwide labor safety inspection, Chinese newspaper Global Times reported.
“The Work Safety Committee of the State Council has sent 31 inspection teams to provincial-level regions to check that work safety rules are being followed”, the report said.
The results of the audit will be taken into account in the annual performance assessment of the local authorities.
According to the report, the inspectors will visit local governments to solve work safety problems, and also visit key enterprises without prior warning.
The local authorities and agencies will be held accountable if, as a result of the audit, serious work-safety hazards are revealed or if local authorities fail to punish the company after detecting serious problems in this area.
As reported, from August 13 to 25, the inspectors recorded an improvement in terms of work-safety situation at enterprises operating at coal mines, fireworks factories and chemical companies in 18 provinces and municipalities.
Nevertheless, the newspaper notes, despite regular demands to pay more attention to work safety, tragedies happen quite often. E.g., this month an “extremely serious” accident left at least 36 people killed and 13 injured on an expressway in Shaanxi Province in northwestern China.
““Extremely severe” refers to accidents that either cause more than 30 deaths, leave more than 100 severely injured or result in more than 100 million yuan (about 15 million US dollars) in direct economic losses. The number of work-safety accidents fell 24.7 percent year on year in the January-July period, while fatalities fell 16.8 percent”, the report reads.