Power cuts in some areas have increased pressure on production safety. In the first ten months, more than 100 million people were affected by natural disasters.

On November 8, the State Council Information Office held a press conference on accelerating the modernization of the emergency management system and capabilities. At the meeting, the safety production situation across the country since the establishment of the Emergency Management Department in 2018, the safety production situation this year, and the shutdown The impact of power cuts on production safety, extreme weather, floods and other natural disasters and their responses will be introduced and answered.

Zhou Xuewen, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Emergency Management, said that overall, the national safety production situation has continued to improve steadily. From 2018 to 2020, the number of various production safety accidents and deaths were higher than those in the three years before the establishment of the Emergency Management Department. They dropped by 26.9% and 27.6% respectively, of which major accidents dropped by 41.9% and 39.7%, and particularly serious accidents dropped by 66.7% and 77.1%. There have been no particularly serious accidents (more than 30 deaths) in the country for 25 consecutive months, breaking the historical record. ; The number of deaths and missing persons due to natural disasters nationwide, the number of collapsed houses, and direct economic losses have dropped by 41.5%, 65.0%, and 10.6% respectively compared with the three years before the establishment of the Ministry of Emergency Management.

Song Yuanming, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Emergency Management, pointed out that my country's current safety production work is faced with the reality of "three phases" superimposed, namely the period of high accident incidence at the end of the year, the peak period of energy supply guarantee and the period of frequent disaster weather. Our country is still one of the countries with the most serious natural disasters in the world. Under the background of global warming, extreme weather and climate events occur frequently in our country.

Zhou Xuewen pointed out that my country’s emergency management industry has just started in the new era, and there are still many shortcomings and weaknesses that need to be solved by further deepening reforms.

Power cuts increase pressure on production safety

Production safety has always been the "basic" and "fundamentals" of emergency management. Song Yuanming pointed out that my country's production safety is generally on a stable downward curve, but this curve fluctuates with sawtooth fluctuations. Since the beginning of this year, major accidents and major accidents have increased slightly compared with last year and the year before, and there has been a slight rebound.

Since the beginning of this year, 14 major accidents have occurred in my country, distributed in mining, road transportation, fire protection, construction, gas and other industries.

Song Yuanming said that my country’s traditional industries such as chemical industry, mining, and tailings ponds have many aspects and are wide-ranging, and traditional risks still exist. At the same time, many changes in the gas pipeline network, construction projects, and bridge construction cycles are superimposed. As time goes by and enters the aging period, some risks will appear again. There are also new risks brought by new technologies, new industries, and new business formats such as new energy batteries, as well as new risks arising from oil and gas storage and capacity expansion, high-speed rail, large-scale complexes, etc. The increase in extreme weather also poses a great threat to production safety.

The current price of raw materials has risen sharply, the pressure to ensure coal supply is relatively high, and power cuts have been imposed in some areas, which has brought pressure and challenges to production safety.

Song Yuanming introduced that its impact mainly has the following three aspects:

First, the sharp increase in raw material prices will inevitably lead to increased costs and operating difficulties for downstream enterprises, and increased operating pressure on enterprises. In this case, it is possible to reduce security investment.

Second, with coal prices rising sharply and the pressure to ensure supply increasing, some coal mines may compete for production on a large scale in the short term, and some coal mines may also reduce safety conditions and deregulation situation. High prices may also trigger a "final madness" in some coal mines that are about to be closed down, and may even lead to a "resurgence" in some coal mines that have been closed down.

Third, power restriction measures may impact the normal production and operation order of enterprises. Petrochemicals, steel, hazardous chemicals, and coal mines are all enterprises that operate continuously, and a power outage will cause great harm. At the same time, it will have an impact on the safe and stable operation of equipment of some enterprises. "Stop and start, and once the power outage passes, there will be compensatory production, and then the losses will be made up, and new super-capacity production will be created. These are safe production "

In view of the risk challenges during the peak period of ensuring energy supply, the period of high incidence of accidents at the end of the year, and the period of frequent disaster weather, the Emergency Management Department has continued to strengthen supervision and inspection to promote measures to increase coal mine safety and ensure supply. Implement orderly power rationing, and organize professional production safety emergency rescue teams in various regions to strengthen preventive inspections and safety technical services and other measures.

Song Yuanming said that the leadership team of the State Bureau of Mine Safety Supervision led a team to carry out safety production supervision and inspection in 10 areas with serious coal mine disasters, and on the premise of ensuring safety, promoted coal mines with the potential to increase production to release production capacity as soon as possible. While ensuring supply, we must also intensify the crackdown on illegal coal mines. "This will not only safeguard the energy supply, but also maintain the bottom line of safe production."

The Ministry of Emergency Management also urged relevant departments and power companies to further improve the power reduction plan on the premise of ensuring safety. Implement orderly power rationing, encourage relevant departments and enterprises to formulate and implement power outage emergency plans, and strengthen drills to strictly prevent production safety accidents caused by power outages.

This year’s flood disasters are more serious than in previous years

Zhou Xuewen said that my country’s basic national conditions are that there are many types of natural disasters, they are widely distributed, occur very frequently and cause heavy losses. Since this century, our country has suffered an average of about 300 million people affected by various natural disasters every year, with an average annual direct economic loss of more than 300 billion yuan.

From January to October this year, various natural disasters caused 106 million people to be affected, 855 people were dead and missing, 5.85 million people were urgently relocated, 213,000 houses collapsed, and 11,949 crops were affected. Thousand hectares, direct economic losses of 321.2 billion yuan. Compared with the average of the same period in the past five years, the number of people affected by disasters this year dropped by 29.1%, the number of deaths and missing persons due to disasters dropped by 10.4%, the number of collapsed houses increased by 8.1%, and direct economic losses dropped by 9.0%.

In the context of global warming, extreme weather and climate events occur frequently in my country. Since the beginning of this year, extreme weather events such as tornadoes in Nantong, Jiangsu, heavy rainstorms in Zhengzhou, Henan, and heavy rainstorms in Suizhou, Hubei have caused heavy casualties and property losses.

Zhou Xuewen said, "Although the probability of such extreme weather and climate events is small, the intensity of the disaster and the consequences of the disaster are severe, which brings serious challenges to the prevention and response work." Challenges include the difficulty of accurate forecasting , strong suddenness, long disaster chain, high disposal requirements, etc.

To this end, the Emergency Management Department has taken targeted measures such as strengthening bottom-line thinking, forecasting and warning, operability of plans, unified command, force pre-positioning and social mobilization to respond.

Zhou Xuewen pointed out that extremely heavy rainfall often causes severe urban waterlogging, river floods, flash floods, landslides, production safety accidents and other secondary derivative disasters. There are two significant characteristics of flood disasters in my country this year: the distribution of rainfall is generally more in the north and less in the south, with more rainfall in the north and heavier flood disasters; autumn floods are rare in history. Since the beginning of autumn, there have been many floods in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, the Han River, the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, and the Hainan and Henan systems. Autumn floods occurred in the basin.

Compared with previous years, floods this year are more severe. From January to October, floods caused 58.9 million people to be affected, 590 people were dead and missing, 3.515 million people were urgently relocated, and 203,000 houses collapsed, causing direct economic losses of 240.6 billion yuan, which was the same as the average for the same period in the past five years. Compared with the previous year, the number of people affected by disasters decreased by 12.9%, the number of deaths and missing persons due to disasters increased by 9.7%, the number of emergency relocations decreased by 8.5%, the number of collapsed houses increased by 25.3%, and direct economic losses increased by 12.3%. Currently, some disaster-stricken people in Henan, Shanxi, and Shaanxi are in a transitional resettlement state due to house collapse.

In order to respond to flood disasters and provide disaster relief, the Emergency Management Department has taken various measures. This includes quickly carrying out emergency relief to effectively guarantee the basic life of the people; seizing the time to restore normal production and living order as soon as possible; carefully deploying the winter and spring relief work for the disaster-stricken people.

Zhou Xuewen said that the Ministry of Emergency Management is working hard to prepare a post-disaster recovery and reconstruction plan and plan in advance for the restoration and reconstruction of damaged houses. Some provinces that have the conditions have clearly completed the goal of fully completing the reconstruction of damaged houses before the Spring Festival and are making every effort to help the affected people. Move into your new home as soon as possible.