John Correll, a deputy assistant labor secretary, oversees the US Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration. He said Chinese safety officials were frustrated by the continuing fatalities.

"This week 213, last week 27, virtually every week," he said, referring to mining deaths in the latest accidents, in a country where 6,027 miners were killed in 2004.

MSHA has been training Chinese mining officials and safety inspectors since 2002, through visits to China and at a mining academy in West Virginia. In a new initiative, Australian safety organization SIMTARS (Safety in Mines Testing and Research Station), based in Brisbane will be offering safety training to mine safety officials from Shendong province after the two signed a memorandum of understanding last year to progress the initiative.

But because demand is soaring Chinese officials are having trouble keeping closed mines closed.

“There are new mines opening up all over the place; there's money to be made - that is a major challenge for them," Correll told Reuters.

"They've closed down thousands of what they call illegal mines, and the problem they're having is that as soon as the inspectors leave, (operators) reopen them," he said.

Individual workers' rights are virtually non-existent in China and Western countries are lobbying China to improve labor rights.

Correll believes media attention to China's accidents is forcing the pace of change, as it did in America 100 years ago.

"Every significant improvement that's been made in mine safety in our country has come after some type of disaster, and I see that happening in China now," said Correll.

Meanwhile Simtars said it expects to kick off its safety training for Chinese officials by the second or third quarter this year.