Mine accidents in coal-hungry China killed 1,113 people in the first three months of the year, the government said on Tuesday as it laid out a new plan to try to halt the carnage in the world's deadliest mining industry. The figure represented a 20.2 percent jump in the number of fatalities from the same period last year, Reuters quoted the State Administration of Work Safety as saying. The biggest problem has been enforcing the innumerable regulations designed to keep the industry's more than 25,000 mines safe, said Li Yizhong, Minister of the Administration. "The most fundamental reason for these kinds of mining disasters is that supervision and administration are not very strong, and the laws are not strictly enforced," Li told a news conference. Last year, more than 6,000 miners were killed in explosions, floods and other underground disasters in China, and Premier Wen Jiabao has pledged to spend 3 billion yuan ($362.5 million) to improve mine safety. In the latest accident on Tuesday, one miner was killed and 22 trapped after a gas explosion at a coal mine in the southwestern district of Chongqing, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
