China News

If you haven't already heard, there's been a terrible explosion at a Chinese coal mine in Liaoning Province (in Manchuria.) At least 200 people are dead, a number which would have been much worse if the country weren't still on vacation for the Lunar New Year.

Interestingly, coal prices in China were among the last commodity prices to be liberalized. Well in to the 1990s, coal was still priced way below market rates. When the price cap was lifted, there was a huge expansion in coal mining, but almost all of it was in labour-intensive, small-scale mining as opposed to the large-scale state-owned mines. This has led to the current situation, where most of Chinese coal comes from small mines with little to no safety standards. Sadly, even with this disaster China's coal deaths this year probably won't be much larger than previous years. On average, some 2,000 miners die every year in China, so this is a slight uptick - though it's still early for 2005... come on China! You can do it!

Sorry. That's ghoulish.