China's National Mine Safety Administration (NMSA) said it has investigated and handled more than 18,000 major accident hazards at mines across the country this year, up 92% from a year earlier, as it intensifies a crackdown on safety violations.

The administration also reported over 2,100 major hazards at coal mines, up 56% year on year, according to a statement released at its third-quarter press conference in Beijing on September 24.

During the third quarter, the NMSA accelerated the development of regulations and standards, issuing implementation measures for coal mine work safety permits, five mandatory national standards including a specification for the general survey of hidden disaster-causing factors at mines, and eight industry standards for mine safety.

The regulator stepped up efforts to crack down on illegal and irregular activities, targeting concealed working faces, falsified monitoring systems, miners entering shafts without positioning cards, illegal subcontracting, construction not in line with designs, building without approval and illegal extraction at tailings ponds.

Authorities have transferred more than 600 suspected criminal cases involving over 1,400 people since 2023 as part of efforts to link administrative enforcement with criminal justice, the NMSA said.

The administration conducted two rounds of on-site inspections at 20 coal mines in Shaanxi, Xinjiang and Hebei, and carried out a nationwide survey of hidden disaster-causing factors to strengthen coal mine production capacity management and prevent overcapacity production risks.

The NMSA also advanced the development of intelligent analysis models targeting falsified safety monitoring data and miners entering shafts without positioning cards, and has verified and handled more than 19,000 problem clues.

To address inadequate implementation of eight hard measures in some regions and companies, the administration issued an urgent notice demanding strict enforcement to resolutely prevent coal mine accidents.

It organized a final evaluation of a three-year campaign to improve mine safety across all mining provinces and autonomous regions, incorporating the implementation of the eight hard measures into key assessment criteria, and found nearly 1,000 problems and hidden dangers.

The NMSA also pushed key provinces including Shanxi to carry out special rectification campaigns, focusing on eliminating concealed working faces and falsified monitoring systems, and continued efforts to dynamically clear major accident hazards at mines.