Lung disease in coal mining claims far more lives than accidents do

Coal miners work at the Dongfang Coal Mine in Huainan city, east China's Anhui province, 19 August 2014. [Photo/IC]

Sixty-two percent of patients with a lung disease caused by dust inhalation come from the coal mining industry, and its death toll far outnumbers those in mining accidents, highlighting a significant danger to miners' health, a report released on Friday said.

More than 720,000 workers nationwide reported their disease, pneumoconiosis, to the China Coal Miner Pneumoconiosis Prevention and Treatment Foundation. About 440,000 of those, or 62 percent, were from the mining industry. The form of the ailment prevalent among coal miners is known formally as black lung disease.

The foundation, under the leadership of the State's top work safety authority, has spent more than 113 million yuan ($18.1 million) since it was founded in 2004, and has provided assistance for the treatment of more than 125,500 pneumoconiosis patients, the report said.

But it's far from enough to cover the large group of workers suffering from the ailment.

It's estimated that there are 6 million workers with pneumoconiosis nationwide, of which 90 percent are rural residents. The number increases by 20,000 workers every year, according to a survey released by a special foundation targeted on the pneumoconiosis patients under the China Social Assistance Foundation in July.

The Ministry of Health said by the end of 2010, 22 percent of the reported 677,000 black lung disease sufferers had died.

By comparison, the death toll from mining accidents declined to 1,067 in 2013, down from about 7,000 annually 15 years ago, according to the State Administration of Work Safety.