Saving lives, making millions

Sixteen years ago, Yang Cunzhi, then 25, began to work in Majiliang mine, a remote coalmine in Datong, North China's Shanxi Province, where he became one of millions of miners in the sea of coals.

This year, the 41-year-old was elected to be one of 2,217 delegates to attend the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) that will be held in Beijing this month. The delegates, who come from all over China, have made outstanding achievements in their positions.

As a senior mining engineer, Yang has improved 47 mining techniques, which are widely adopted in the coalmine industry, and significantly boosted production and made his company millions. He will give a speech on mining safety in the Congress.

When he graduated from the Institute of Mining in Taiyuan, capital city of Shanxi Province in 1991, Yang and other graduates came to Majiliang mine. As soon as they saw the mine, most of them quit because of its poor condition. But Yang believed he could make a difference.

He started his life as an ordinary coal miner, working on the front line of the coal industry.

Being down in the mine an average 20 times a month, Yang changed from being a college student to a coal miner. He gradually began to understand his new role and even witnessed fatal accidents.

In 1998, Yang had become a leader of an excavating team. Once when he and his teammates were underground, they touched a sandstone bed. In order to continue working, Yang decided to excavate from another kerf. When the team was moving through a narrow tunnel, Yang heard a strange sound overhead, which became louder and louder.

Suddenly he realized the roof might be collapsing. Yang immediately led his teammates out of the mine. Soon, they heard a tremendous sound behind them: The whole roof 18 meters above collapsed.

From then on, Yang began researching the factors that lead to such accidents. He found that most were caused by individual negligence.

Yang created a personal file management method. He noted information including their family members, hobbies and customs and updated them in time. If he found anyone behaving unusually, he was able to find the reason and help miners solve their problems.

Yang also let all miners put up their family picture onto a wall in their relief room, reminding themselves that safety was more important than anything. Before going into the mine, every miner needed to correctly answer all random safety questions from a computer.

"There is no pass grade for life, you have to make 100 percent right," Yang says. He believes every single mistake could lead to a tragedy and to maintain a sustainable development means to make people safe first.

Besides building a safe producing system, Yang concentrated on researching mining techniques. Meanwhile, his successes spurred other miners' passion to study mining knowledge. Today, many of them have grown to become mining masters.

During the 16 years he was there, no accidents occurred at the Majiliang mine and the production kept booming. From 2004, its annual production has been over 2 million tons, a record of its kind throughout China. This year, China National Coal Association awarded Yang and his team among "The National Best 10 Mining Teams".

In May, Yang was elected by CPC Shanxi delegate's convention to attend the 17th CPC National Congress.

"We all cheered when we heard this news, he is the most qualified to represent all of us," one of Yang's teammates says.

(China Daily 10/09/2007 page19)