ZHENGZHOU, June 9 (Xinhua) -- Liao Shide, a farmer in Southwest China's Guizhou Province, went to work in a gold mine in an adjacent province for years. After going back home early this year, Liao quickly died of silicosis, a lung disease caused by continued inhalation of siliceous mineral dust.

    Up till then, of all the 118 migrant workers from Liao's village who flocked to the gold mine, 12 had been killed by the same disease.

    With China's agricultural production system introducing more mechanization, many local farmers are left idle at home and become migrant workers, taking up temporary jobs in cities and towns across China.

    For the lack of protection measures, they often become the victims of occupational diseases.

    In 2002, a lung-disease hospital in east China city Wuxi of Jiangsu Province found that some 159 migrant workers who were laboring in sand factories in the city have caught silicosis. Doctors said most of them could not make another ten years of lives.

    Liu Xinxiang, a farmer from Sichuan Province, told Xinhua that his three sons were among the migrant workers hired by the sand factories. "All of my three sons died from the disease later, and none of them were over 40 years old," the heartstricken farmer said.

    Liu later went to Wuxi, and witnessed the factory that deprived him of his children. "When machines were crushing stones into sand, the mineral dust simply pervade the room and I could see nothing three meters away," the old man said. Without dustproof apparatuses and masks, Liu's sons had to work here for 15 hours per day.

    In 2003, over 100 migrant workers in a quartz factory in southeast China's Fujian Province were found to have silicosis and 19 of them died later.

    In 2004, of 100 farmers who went from Guizhou's Ziyun County to work in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, 40 had checked up with silicosis and a dozen died.

    China's incidence of pneumoconiosis, a general name for all lung diseases caused by continued inhalation of mineral or metallic dust, is one of the highest in the world.

    Up to the end of 2001, the accumulative total of pneumoconiosis patients had amounted to nearly 570,000 in China, with an annual increase of 10,000 and an annual death toll of 5,000, over 90 percent of them were migrant workers.

    Those who work for small private enterprises and mines are especially dangerous, health experts noted. Some bosses don't tell them the knowledge of poisonous materials, and may even drive them away if they get sick.

    In some small plants, poisonous chemicals, such as silicon dioxide and trichloro ethylene, are randomly placed in the workshop, and the migrant worker do not know their toxicity at all, according to the experts.

    Furthermore, not every worker knows his own health conditions well. In Central China's Henan Province, only 16 percent of workers whose work exposes to toxic materials in county factories received physical examinations in 2003, while only 2.94 percent of those in towns could enjoy the service.

    In 2005, the figures were a bit higher, but still only one fourth of workers in big-and-medium-sized enterprises had medical checkups.

    Ding Zhenan, a migrant worker in a mine, said, "I had a physical exam last March when I first came here. The doctor in the mine clinic got my blood pressure. No other medical instruments did I see."

    Fortunately, the government has begun to attach importance to the problem. Wang Guangsong, Vice-director of the Guizhou Occupational Disease Prevention Institute, argues that economic development should not be paid by migrant workers' health.

    Cao Hegan, Head of Jiangxi Occupational Disease Prevention and Monitoring Station, holds that occupational diseases are threatening migrant workers because, on one hand, factory and mine owners ignore laws and regulations for more profits, and on the other hand, workers are afraid of losing jobs and try to tolerate bad working environment that brings harm to their health and even lives.

    Cao urged governments at all levels to carry out reform on healthcare protection for migrant workers and improve the disease prevention mechanism.

    "We should put focus on healthcare for migrant workers since they are often the main economic source of their families, the death of one worker means the poverty of one family," the official said.

    Huang Zhijun, a doctor of Henan Occupational Disease Prevention Institute, said the loss of labors will finally affect the sustainable development of China, so we must prevent beforehand the outburst of occupational diseases, especially among migrant workers. Enditem