The manufacturing sector replaced mining industry as the most pneumoconiosis-ridden industry in South China's Guangdong Province.

Between 1989 and 2004 in Guangdong, 2,418 people suffered from pneumoconiosis, a lung disease caused by prolonged exposure to mineral or metallic dust, and 1,302 died, according to a report by Guangdong Hospital for Treatment and Prevention of Occupational Diseases.

"Pneumoconiosis makes up 80 per cent of all occupational diseases and costs 200 million yuan (US$25 million) in direct economic loss and more than 100 lives in Guangdong every year," Qiu Chuangyi, deputy director of the hospital, told China Daily yesterday.

Traditionally, the workplaces with the highest risk of occupational diseases were mining sites and metallurgical factories.

Since Guangdong's mining industry is going downhill, light industry factories, especially precious stone processing, have become the main places workers got the disease, Qiu said.

"The reason is the rapid development of manufacturing industry in Guangdong which has poor preventative mechanism," Qiu said. "The problem is more acute in private and some foreign-investment ventures."

Prevention of pneumoconiosis is not complicated. Workplace ventilation and work safety are two key ways, Qiu said. However, supervising private enterprise is not easy, he said.

The hospital conducted a survey of 152 precious stone processing enterprises in Guangdong in 2004, setting up more than 800 dust monitors.

Fifty-six per cent of the monitors showed the dust content exceeded the safe level. Among the 4,591 workers involved in the survey, 137 were suffering from pneumoconiosis.

"The compensation provided to a worker who gets pneumoconiosis from workplaces is between 40,000 (US$5,000) yuan and 100,000 yuan (US$12,500). But most victims complain the sum is not enough to cover their medical expenses," Zhang Donghui, a chief doctor of the hospital, said.

In May 2002, the law on occupational disease prevention went into effect, but the problem is that many enterprises have not abided by the law.

Editor: Yan