Chinese Managers Jailed for The Blast

A Chinese court jailed two managers of a state-owned coal mine on Wednesday for negligence two years after a gas explosion killed 166 miners, Xinhua news agency said.

The blast, one of the worst in China in decades, hit the Chenjiashan coal mine in Tongchuan in the northwestern province of Shaanxi just days after the pit had caught fire.

Mine manager Liu Shuangming was jailed for 5- years and his deputy and chief engineer, Wang Youjun, was jailed for five years, Xinhua said.

Also on Wednesday, an appeals court in the farwest region of Xinjiang upheld a lower court's June sentencing of five managers and technicians of a coal mine to jail terms from three to six years for a gas blast that killed 83 last year, it said, ABCnews reported.