Life is precious, but if a price is put on it, can you tell how much a Chinese mineworker ¡ª usually the only breadwinner of a poor family somewhere in the vast Chinese territory ¡ª is worth?

This question is painful to me whenever I think of the mine accident on February 15 in Northeast China¡¯s Liaoning Province, which claimed 214 lives soon after the Chinese New Year.

I am not sure how many answers I will get from the question, but one thing is clear: this year¡¯s Lantern Festival on February 23 was the saddest possible occasion to those families whose loved ones will never come back to give them a smile or a hug.

As the media dutifully reports the big and small accidents in mines and other industries, people who are not directly affected become numb to the number of casualties. Some think there is no reason to worry since they believe families of the victims receive financial compensation enough to support the family for quite a long while.

The fact is, the compensation to these families is appallingly inadequate. In some cases it was less than 10,000 yuan (US$1,210) ¡ª the price of one square metre of some apartments in Shanghai.

One of my acquaintances, who used to be an official with the State Administration of Work Safety, revealed to me that the above amount was given to bereaved families in the remote Southwest China¡¯s Guizhou Province.

The figure may seem large, since the average living standard ¡ª which determines the amount of compensation ¡ª varies, but in my eyes, it will never make up for the damage to the sufferers.

To support their family, these mineworkers ¡ª who are mostly farmers with little knowledge about the risks underground or the laws governing their safety ¡ª do not hesitate to sign what amounts to a life-or-death contract with mine owners.

Contracts which stipulate the price of a life at a dozen thousand yuan are not rare in small mines. Perhaps the workers believe they will be lucky enough to bring their earnings back home, or maybe the owners just think the lives of these farmers are worth so little.

In a bid to change the situation and ensure that life is respected and protected, North China¡¯s Shanxi Province, one of the largest coal producers in the country, ordered in December last year that the family of anyone killed in a coal mine would be paid at least 200,000 yuan (US$24,200).

This amount of money was many times what so many poor lives were valued at not long before.

Some people applauded the policy because the high cost will mean mine owners can no longer take a casual attitude toward safety (statistics show that about 6,000 mineworkers are killed on the job every year). But others worry that the canny mine owners will try their best to cover up the truth about accidents instead of enhancing the safety of the working environment.

The central government authority is considering policies to ensure each death will be more reasonably compensated and set fines and criminal sentences for mine owners when casualties occur.

It will be a great achievement if the government can safeguard the life of each mineworker. I wonder how long it will take to accomplish the goal.