Experts attending the second China international conference on city and industrial safety said here Friday that China face serious public safety problems, which bring about a loss of more than 600 billion yuan (US$74 billion) every year.

The public safety problems include natural disasters, accidents and social unrest which harm public security.

These left about 200,000 people killed and more than two million injured every year during the past few years, said Shan Chunchang, counselor of the State Council.

Its special geological structure and natural environment make China one of the nations that suffers the most natural disasters in the world.

Every year nearly 200 million people are affected by natural disasters, and nearly 10,000 of them lose their lives. Frequent and widespread disasters also bring about 200 billion yuan (about US$24 billion) in loss every year.

China, on average, sees seven accidents every day, in which three to nine people are killed. Every week there are on average 2.5 accidents in which more than ten people die.

Every year more than 130,000 people die of accidents together with an economic loss of 350 billion yuan (US$43 billion), said the counselor.

In addition to these, experts say that China's public health situation is also not optimistic. In 2004, 7,451 people died of various sorts of infectious diseases.

In the face of this situation, Shan acknowledged, China should establish a more complete emergency mechanism for public safety problems by learning from the past experience.

At the same time, the expert pointed out that government at all levels must improve education to raise society's awareness to prevent disasters and strengthen medical aid when the accidents occur.

(Xinhua News Agency November 5, 2005)