Wang Yong/Shanghai Daily

Avarice and indifference lurk behind almost all mining accidents that have left fathers crying for their sons and women weeping for their husbands.
Hundreds of miners have fallen, as owners' filthy profits rise.
When the sons and husbands are buried, the mine owners are busy buying posh cars or squandering money on women and wine.
That's enough. Let's stop this dining and whining at the expense of human lives.
Let's stop it now. Let's see how.
First, revise the Criminal Law to increase punishment of those wanton mine owners.
If immediate revision is unlikely, ask the Supreme People's Court to make special interpretations to that effect.
Clause 134 of the current Criminal Law anticipates wanton behavior by some mine owners but it metes out too lenient punishment.
According to the clause, any mine owner who forces miners to work against safety regulations when risks are looming should be sentenced to three years in prison or, no more than seven years if the consequences are severe.
What? Three to seven years in prison for someone who has willfully gambled away someone else' life? What's the difference between a murderer and a mine owner who knows his workers might die but lets it happen anyway?
Yes, he may not stab them to death but, in the final analysis, a murderer and such a mine owner share the same cold-blooded indifference to human life.
And a murderer kills far fewer people than such a mine owner.
It's not that a mine owner must ensure there's no explosion. No one can guarantee that.
But when he ignores work safety regulations and forces miners to work underground when signs of dangers are obvious, the owner becomes a murderer.
He should be sentenced to life in prison, to say the least.
And all his illegal income should be confiscated, rather than allowing him to parcel out a small amount of compensation to bereaved families.
Glaring violations of safety regulations in the mad pursuit of profit can be seen in both the latest tragedy in Qitaihe in Northeast China that has killed at least 162 workers and the one in Xingning in South China that killed 123 in August.
To save themselves from themselves, those mine owners should be shut away behind bars for a long time.
Second, remove all local officials who are responsible for accidents in one way or another.
Keeping them in their posts will only lead to yet another, possibly greater, tragedy. They defy central government orders but let's make sure this is the last time.