Sixteen officials have received disciplinary punishment for neglecting their duties in handling disputes that eventually led to deadly explosions in May in east China's Jiangxi Province, the province's Party committee said Thursday.

Xi Dongsen, former head of Linchuan District of Fuzhou City, where three explosions on May 26 killed four and injured 10 people, was dismissed from his post, said a statement of the discipline inspection organ of the provincial committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

Xi, also former deputy Party chief of Linchuan District, was also placed on probation within the Party, an inner-Party disciplinary measure, for two years, said the statement.

He Daxin, former president of Fuzhou Intermediate People's Court, was given a serious warning from the Party. His request to resign from the post has been accepted by the city's legislature, said the statement.

Qian Mingqi, a 52-year-old unemployed Fuzhou resident who disputed with the local government over resettlement compensation, was believed to have caused the explosions near the city's government buildings.

Qian was killed in the explosions as well as three others. He had been demanding more compensation after being resettled to make way for a highway in 2002. The government offered to compensate him at 1.8 times of the market price at the end of 2010 but he refused.

The statement blamed the punished officials for failing to properly and timely deal with "reasonable and legitimate requests" of local residents, which eventually caused the extreme results.

The statement did not specify disciplinary measures towards 14 other officials.

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