Both the number of coal mine accidents and death toll nationwide decreased in the first half of this year, an official of State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS) announced Thursday in northwest China's Ningxia Hui autonomous region.
Yang Dongliang, director of SAWS, said during a conference that the number of coal mine accidents in China from January to June decreased 28.2 percent year-on-year and the death toll also dropped 26.3 percent.
Although work safety in the coal mining industry has made some progress, the situation is still tough and accidents haven't been wiped out, said Yang.
According to statistics released by the SAWS, seven serious accidents -- which are defined as having a death toll between 10 to 30 people -- happened during the past six months, and a total of 98 people died in those accidents.
China's mines are among the deadliest in the world. Data from the SAWS showed that 1,973 miners were killed in coal mine accidents in 2011. The death toll for that year, however, was 19 percent lower than that of 2010.
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