Around 70,000 miners have been recruited by Chinese coal mines as mining safety supervisors, a move by the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) to reduce mining accidents.

With at least three years of working experience in coal mines, the supervisors are expected to check irregular mining practices, report safety risks and to help in emergency mine evacuations.

It was also part of the government effort to build a coal mine production safety supervision mechanism by workers, said an ACFTU official who preferred anonymity.

The supervisors have been selected from mine workers since a decision by the ACFTU and State Administration of Coal Mine Safety in June last year.

The government plans to enlarge the number of supervisors to 100,000 in mines across the country.

By the end of July, 24 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, including Hebei, Shanxi and Beijing, had ordered their major coal mines and some rural coal mines to hire safety supervisors.

Accidents occur almost daily in China's coal mining industry and the survival odds for miners trapped underground are usually low.

Last year nearly 6,000 miners died in 3,300 blasts, floods, collapses and other accidents as mine owners pushed production beyond safety limits in a rush to meet booming demand.

(Xinhua News Agency August 23, 2006)