Half of all Chinese-made fireworks fail to meet basic safety standards, state media said on Monday, ahead of the Lunar New Year when the hazardous products will be used in massive numbers.
”The production and standards of many small and medium-sized fireworks producers in townships and villages do not meet state requirements,” said Zhang Guanghua, a work safety official.
Fireworks are an indispensable part of Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations, leading to large numbers of injuries and deaths every year. The new year falls on Wednesday this year.
The State Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, made recent spot checks on 120 fireworks enterprises and found that only 56,7% met quality standards.
Frequent problems included fireworks with fuses that were too short, or those that used banned chemicals that easily burn or explode.
In a country notorious for its lax work safety regulations, fireworks production is a particularly dangerous industry.
In the period from 1985 to 2003, a total of 8 448 explosions caused by fireworks took place across China, or more than one every day on average, previous statistics have shown.
According to the most recent official figures, 192 people died in explosions at fireworks plants in the first nine months of last year.
An explosion at a fireworks factory in the northern province of Shanxi last month killed 25 people and injured nine.
Work safety officials have said for years they want to improve safety, but there have been scant results.
The latest series of measures involves merging small workshops into larger production facilities, where safety procedures can be more easily monitored.
”[Unsafe] workshops are to be phased out or developed into more advanced factories,” Zhang, the work safety official, told the China Daily newspaper.
Previous measures, including outright bans have had limited success, and unsafe factories have been reopened shortly after being closed down.
The fireworks industry is a major employer in many parts of China and local officials cannot afford to throw large numbers of workers into unemployment.
An earlier crackdown on fireworks production in the eastern province of Jiangxi, where production has a long tradition, cost 200 000 jobs. – Sapa-AFP