BEIJING, Feb 27 (Reuters) - A court in northwestern China has jailed a coal mine boss for 16 years for trying to cover up the death toll of a mine flooding last year which killed 56 people, the Beijing News reported on Tuesday. The People's Court in Datong, a city in Shanxi province neighbouring Beijing, meted out prison sentences ranging from 10 months to six years and six months to 11 co-defendants for complicity in under-reporting the number of casualties. The coal mine boss, Li Fuyuan, 45 this year, was found guilty of failing to adopt effective measures after learning of flooding in his mine in Zuoyun county last May 18, the newspaper said. Li reported a death toll of five to the authorities and bribed officials, the daily said, adding that he was convicted of illegal mining, bribery and falsifying testimony. China has the world's deadliest coal mining industry with fatal accidents on an almost daily basis as safety regulations are ignored and production is pushed beyond limits in the rush for profit. Nearly 6,000 coal miners died in about 3,300 floods, blasts and other accidents in 2005, and the death toll for the first 10 months of 2006 stood at 3,726, according to the latest available figures. Officials say small and privately run coal mines that fall short of safety standards account for most of the casualties, but large state-owned mines report the higher death tolls.
