China's coal mines still risky

Coal mining in China remains a high-risk industry, but authorities will make greater efforts to guarantee production safety and close more small mines, said a senior work safety official.

"China's coal mines are vulnerable to natural disasters and other dangers such as gas, geostatic pressure and terrestrial heat, and half of them have high levels of gas," State Administration of Work Safety spokesman Huang Yi said at a news conference on Friday.

"Although the country's death rate for producing 1 million tons of coal has declined to 0.35, it's still 10 times the rate in the United States," he said. "So China's coal mining industry is still a high-risk one."