HAPPILY slurping his steaming noodles in the afternoon sun, Zang Dashan certainly does not look like a man who could be eating his last meal.

He spits a piece of gristle at a dog curled at his feet, washes his bowl under a grimy tap and heads off to work in the most dangerous profession in China. Mr Zang is a coalminer.

He works in a private mine just outside the central city of Pingdingshan, one of the country’s three main coal towns. The mines here, and elsewhere, are working flat out, racing to provide the fuel for China’s economic boom.

But in the rush for profit, safety concerns get short shrift and the death toll from accidents grows steadily worse.

Barely a day goes by without a report of deaths from an explosion, flood, fire or collapse in a mine somewhere in China. In the first nine months of this year more than 4,000 miners were killed — an average of 17 a day and double the number a year earlier — despite a government campaign to close down unsafe mines.

But if Mr Zang is worried, he does not show it. “Am I afraid? What’s the point? If I die, I die,” he says as he climbs into a metallic pulley lift and starts a 100m (328ft) journey into the bowels of Henan Province.

Water drips down the walls. The only light is from a lamp on his plastic helmet. Mr Zang, wearing rubber boots and a blue cotton jumpsuit, makes his way under the logs and branches that support the tunnel. He follows the narrow rail tracks for the coal cars, ducking his head to avoid a broken support or a dip in the ceiling.

The rumble of drills at the coalface grows louder. But first Mr Zang has to stop to help two other miners as they use brute force and a log to lever a derailed coal truck back on to the rails.

The scene is Dickensian. On the surface a miner heaves a truck off the pulley lift, pushes it by hand along the rails and empties its load down the side of a coal heap. A bulldozer and two men with shovels fill a lorry that will take the coal for processing. “It’s hard work,” another miner said, “but it’s better paid than tilling the land.”

Despite its appearance, this is one of the safer mines, having passed official safety checks. Three miners return at the end of the morning from a compulsory government-organised training session.

The mine owner, who declined to be identified, proudly shows off a closed-circuit television system linked to the local mining bureau that monitors the two women who operate the lift system, though a camera underground shows only darkness. A management official has to work underground with the miners on every shift.

The Government’s aim is to shut down operations with outdated equipment and to cut the number of small mines from 23,000 now to 10,000 by 2010.

In August Beijing halted production at more than 7,000 mines because they failed to meet safety requirements. Around Pingdingshan — a city created in 1958 to meet China’s need for coal — about 20 of 70 mines have been closed, the owner of the private mine said.

But in China coal is black gold, and many mines are reluctant to comply with new safety rules. In Henan some that have been closed but not yet sealed operate under cover of darkness, making the work all the more dangerous.

The owner says that he can sell his coal for £22 a tonne, up from £5 a tonne five years ago. He will not say how much the mine makes, but it produces about 200 tonnes a day and he drives a large American car — albeit one coated with coal dust.

The miners working underground say that they earn the most, about £100 a month, or close to the average national income. “We get paid more because it’s dangerous down there,” Mr Zang’s brother said. Beijing is also trying to end collusion between government officials and colliery owners.

By last month 4,578 officials had reported £46 million of illegal investment in mines and had withdrawn £33 million. “It’s very clear in such cases that the interests of officials are not aligned with the interests of the miners they are supposed to protect,” a Pingdingshan official said.

Despite the new precautions, Mr Zang and his fellow miners rely on more than hard hats, safety training and management participation.

By way of extra insurance, they pile offerings of fresh apples before gaudy porcelain images of the Buddha.

DEADLY INDUSTRY

Of the 20 deadliest coalmining disasters, eight were in China and four occurred this year. The death tolls were:

210 Explosion, Liaoning

123 Flood, Guangdong

83 Explosion, Xinjiang

72 Explosion, Shanxi

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