China plans to set up a common workers' compensation standard, granting up to 20 years' salary in the event of death or injury caused by a workplace accident determined to be entirely the fault of an employer, according toThe Standard.

The move is designed to make it prohibitively expensive for employers, particularly in the fatality-plagued mining and construction industries, to leave dangerous working conditions unremedied.

It would also encourage them to take out accident insurance on their staff, said Jing Bao, an official publication, quoting Cao Zongli, an official with the regulation department of the State Administration of Work Safety.

Though new regulations designed to foster workplace safety were introduced a year ago, many industries that depend on low-paid migrant workers still refuse to buy employee accident coverage.

On Monday, a fatal gas explosion killed 211 coal miners in Fuxin, Liaoning province. In a separate accident on Tuesday, an explosion at an illegal coal mine in southern China killed 24 people, injured 14 and left three others missing, the government said.

Chinese miners die at a rate of about 16 per day, lost to floods, fires and explosions, reports The Associated Press.