Chinese farmers were warned yesterday to take precautions against
work-related accidents, especially when machinery was involved, in a campaign to
improve its safety record.
Work safety in the agricultural sector was shadowed by two severe accidents
in the last two months, said the Ministry of Agriculture and the State
Administration of Work Safety in a joint circular.
Nineteen workers were swept out to sea by the tide, and only two rescued, as
they returned from collecting purple seaweed off the coast of east China's
Jiangsu Province on May 15.
Seaweed farm owner Liu Songquan was later detained by police for making staff
work late into the evening while workers on other farms had already stopped for
the day.
Drink-driver Xie Dongsheng, in central China's Hunan Province, killed nine
people and injured 16 others when the vehicle called Pantuo, a kind of
four-wheeled tractor most suitable for climbing hills with heavy loads, carrying
28 people and a ton of fertilizer overturned and fell into a three-meter ravine
on his way back to his village from a fair on May 8.
"Lessons should be learned from the terrible accidents," said the circular.
Governments were instructed to rigorously inspect farm machinery to ensure
machines were in proper condition, and enforce checks of violations such as
unlicensed driving and drink-driving in the countryside.
The two ministries also required local governments to report accidents in a
timely manner and accurately, in accordance with a new regulation on the
reporting, investigation and punishment of work-related accidents that is to
come into effect on June 1.
Accidents should never be left with causes unidentified, those responsible
unpunished, or improvements not enforced, said the circular.
The government said on Thursday that 133 people were punished for five major
accidents that killed 249 people in the industrial sector.
