Shanxi court sentences 41 in Jingcheng Mining case over 54 deaths and unreported accidents

The Yuanping City People's Court in Shanxi Province on October 9, 2026 publicly delivered first-instance verdicts against Pan Dangren (潘当仁) and 40 other defendants on charges of major liability accidents, failure to report safety accidents and bribery, according to reports by CLS, China News Service and Xinhua. The court sentenced the defendants to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from 16 years to one year. [ 1 , 2 , 4 ]

Pan received the maximum seven-year term for the major liability accident charge and 11 years for bribery, with the court deciding on a combined sentence of 16 years. Applying what the reports describe as a criminal policy combining severity with leniency, the court gave suspended sentences to two defendants who were responsible for only one death each, bore lesser culpability, had voluntarily surrendered and met the conditions for probation. [ 1 , 2 , 4 ]

According to the court's findings as reported, Pan and Wang Sudong (王苏东) each invested in and set up an iron mine in Dai County around 2003, the Daixian Jingcheng Iron Mine (代县精诚铁矿) and the Daixian Chenglin Iron Mine (代县程林铁矿). During a national resource consolidation in 2011, the two transferred their mining rights to Daixian Jingcheng Mining Co. (代县精诚矿业有限责任公司), referred to as Jingcheng Mining, and the two mines were merged into one. The former Jingcheng Iron Mine became Jingcheng Mining's first mining area and the former Chenglin Iron Mine its second; the two shared a single mining licence but continued to produce and operate independently in their respective areas. [ 1 , 2 , 4 ]

The court found that Pan and Wang contracted excavation and mining work to multiple work teams without mining qualifications, which in turn subcontracted the work to unqualified individuals, and organised production while lacking a safety production licence. Other conduct listed by the court included inadequate preventive measures against safety hazards, failure to make the funding commitments required for safe production, insufficient safety training, the lack of a complete emergency rescue plan, the use of unlicensed motor vehicles in production, lax checks on drivers' qualifications, and organising production in breach of rules while the mine was under a suspension for rectification. The court found this led to 48 major casualty accidents between 2006 and 2022, causing 54 deaths. [ 1 , 2 , 4 ]

After some of the accidents, work team leaders and subcontractors including Chen Kaisong (陈开松) and Chen Lipu (陈立普) failed to fulfil their reporting duties as required, delaying rescue efforts, the court found. Seven defendants including Chen Kaisong were convicted of failing to report safety accidents on this basis. The court also found that Pan, while running the Jingcheng Iron Mine and Jingcheng Mining's first area, gave multiple state employees money and goods worth a total of 8,626,967 yuan to obtain improper benefits, and that Wang, while running the Chenglin Iron Mine and the second area, gave state employees a total of 2.705 million yuan. The court ruled that both men's conduct constituted bribery. [ 1 , 2 , 4 ]

Xinhua added that the court safeguarded the defendants' procedural rights during the trial, and that some deputies to the people's congress, members of the political consultative conference, representatives of the public and relatives of the defendants attended the sentencing. [ 4 ]