The State Council Wednesday expressed its condolences to the relatives of more than 200 people killed, or still missing, in three serious workplace tragedies this month.

It also ordered governments at all levels to learn from the tragedies and weed out safety loopholes to prevent their repeat.

"The current production safety situation remains severe," read a statement issued after a State Council meeting yesterday.

It singled out three incidents to highlight the situation.

The first was the bridge collapse in Central China's Hunan Province on the afternoon of August 13, which killed 64 people who were working on it at the time.

The second happened on August 17, when floods caused by heavy rains caused a breach in the Wenhe River levee, inundating two mines in East China's Shandong Province, one containing 172 miners, the other nine, none of whom have yet been rescued.

The third case occurred on August 19, when 14 workers were killed and 59 were injured when molten aluminum was spilt in a factory in Shandong Province.

All three incidents exposed the companies' failure to implement safety measures and a lack of supervision and bad management on the part of local governments, the statement said.

"The accidents showed the inadequacies of the warning system and taught us a valuable lesson," it said.

It ordered local governments to strengthen their law enforcement and strictly abide by the liability system for those responsible for such incidents.

It also called for more investment in research on technology related to production safety to enable a rapid response in the event of an emergency.

It also warned of the threat of accidents triggered by natural disasters and vowed to clamp down on companies that failed to provide adequate facilities to prevent workplace accidents.