Seven sentenced for hospital blast in China

A private coal mine operator was given a reprieved death penalty while his six accomplices were sentenced to varying jail terms for causing the death of 35 people in a deadly dynamite blast that destroyed a hospital and six houses in China's Shanxi Province last year.

The man, Wang Jinsheng, a private mine operator and administrator of the hospital where the blast occurred, was given a death sentence with a two-year reprieve on Friday by the Intermediate People's Court of Xinzhou City, Xinhua news agency reported.

The court convicted him of illegally trading, transporting and storing 11,000 kilograms of dynamite and 27,000 detonators.

The explosion on April 10 last year had killed 35 people and injured scores of others.

The probation was given for his surrender to police after the blast, the court said.

Six others, including Wang's his driver and his colliery storekeeper got prison terms ranging from two to 12 years.

Wang stored 3,700 kilograms of dynamite and 10,000 detonators in a garage of a hospital in Yuanping City on March 28 last year. He had bought the explosives for his private colliery.

First Published: Jan 20, 2007 11:54 IST