Death

Teenage worker arrested after allegedly stabbing boss to death

A seventeen-year-old worker is in detention after stabbing his boss more than 30 times in a dispute over unpaid wages, the mainland media has reported. The young worker, surnamed Wang, had been employed for two months at a small factory in the northeastern city of Jilin. He had been promised a salary of 500 yuan a month but had only been paid 300 yuan for two months work. He made repeated demands for his due wages but was always rebuffed by the boss.

Explosion at state-owned coal mine kills 26

At least 26 miners died when a gas explosion ripped through a coal mine in the central province of Henan on Tuesday 7 December. State media reported that 20 of 46 miners thought to be underground at the time had been safely evacuated. The disaster came just one week after seven miners died in a flooded coal mine in Xiangtan, Hunan province. According to the official Chinese media, mine owners and managers had been warned at least four weeks earlier of the potential safety hazards at the mine. In both cases, the mines had recently merged with other mines or mining groups in a bid to boost production.

The National: China saves 29 from flooded mine

All 29 people trapped in a flooded coal mine in China's south-western Sichuan province were brought to safety yesterday, a happy outcome amid numerous fatal incidents in the country's mining industry.

USA Today: Chilean mine rescue sheds some light on safety in China

A prototype of the "Phoenix" capsule that rescued 33 miners in Chile sits at the Chile Pavilion at Shanghai's World Expo — a symbol of an outcome that happens all too infrequently in China. As the world's largest producer and consumer of coal, China suffers the highest absolute number of coal mining-related deaths. In 2009, coal mine accidents killed 2,631, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency. In the USA, coal mining fatalities totaled a record-low 18 in 2009, according to the Mine Safety and Health Administration.

37 Chinese miners die in Henan just days after the rescue of 33 miners in Chile

Officials confirmed today that all 37 miners trapped underground during a massive gas explosion at a coal mine in China’s central Henan province on 16 October have died. A total of 276 miners were underground when 2,500 tonnes of coal dust enveloped the mine in Yuzhou after a gas explosion in the early hours of Saturday morning, just two days after the dramatic rescue of 33 Chilean miners, trapped underground for about ten weeks.

BBC World Service Business Daily: Deep Dirty and Dangerous

As the world waits to see if the thirty three Chilean miners trapped 700 metres underground are pulled out safely, Business Daily looks at the safety of mines and mining. After years of decline fatality figures in China are on the rise again; Jonny Dymond talks to Geoffrey Crotham of the China Labour Bulletin about whether new safety initiatives in China wil make a difference; and Anthony Hodges of the International Council on Mining and Metals tells the programme whether or not he'd go down a Chinese Mine.

The Guardian: China mining bosses 'employ stand-ins to avoid being sent into pits'

It was a bold, even desperate, attempt by China's leaders to cut the shocking death toll in its pits: send bosses into the shaft with the miners. But Chinese media reported today that one mine had responded by appointing substitutes, increasing cynicism about whether senior mine staff will comply

Bloomberg Business Week: Everything Is Made by Foxconn in Future Evoked by Gou's Empire

On a crushingly hot mid-August day at Foxconn Technology Group’s Longhua factory campus in Shenzhen -- where a dutiful army of 300,000 employees eats, sleeps, and churns out iPhones, Sony Corp. PlayStations, and Dell Inc. computers -- workers indulged in a rare moment of celebration.

Canadian Press: iPhone-maker Foxconn holds rallies in attempt to boost morale after worker suicides in China

Following a string of suicides at its Chinese factories, Foxconn Technology Group raised workers' wages and installed safety nets on buildings to catch would-be jumpers. Now the often secretive manufacturer of the iPhone and other electronics is holding rallies for its workers to raise morale at the heavily regimented factories.

At least 19 killed in massive explosion at fireworks factory

The death toll in yesterday’s explosion at a fireworks factory in northeastern China has risen to 19, with more than 150 injured or missing. It is still not known for sure how many workers were in the factory at the time.

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