Chinese Vice-Premier Ma Kai emphasized on Wednesday that all levels in government as well as in enterprises must relentlessly continue to exert efforts to achieve work safety and reduce the occurrences of accidents.
Ma reported at the national conference on production safety that improved safety supervision had been instrumental in the reduction of the number of accidents and casualties reported in 2013. Ma urged those in the national conference to have increased and stronger awareness in pursuing improvements in work safety. He also asked to have the accountability systems in place to be further enhanced so that enterprises and local governments assume major responsibility in the prevention of accidents.
In his remarks, Ma strongly emphasized safety in coal mines, road transportation as well as in oil and gas pipelines, which all require regular inspections and fire-fighting measures, most especially in construction sites, crowded areas and underground locations. China's chief work safety watchdog has already completed its investigation of the fatal pipeline explosion that claimed the lives of 62 people in China's eastern city of Qingdao on Nov. 22.
Results of the investigation show that the main cause of the accident was the drilling operations that the repair staff was conducting. The operations produced sparks that eventually resulted in an explosion fuelled by oil that leaked from a pipeline owned by a subsidiary of Sinopec, China's biggest oil refinery.
Due to the findings of the investigation of the grim incident, 63 people will be penalized, 48 of whom will receive punishments for violating Party and administrative disciplines while the 15 others have been referred to judicial agencies for crimes they had allegedly committed in connection with the incident.