Three township officials in north China have been sentenced to up to 12 years in prison for negligence in a retrial over a coal mine flooding last year that killed 56 workers.

Liu Yongxin, former head of Zhangjiachang Town, was sentenced to 12 years for abuse of power, negligence and a new charge of bribery, according to the Yanggao County People's Court in Shanxi Province.

In the first trial in December, Liu had only been sentenced to one year in prison with a reprieve of a year and a half.

Chang Rui, former secretary of the Communist Party of China Zhangjiachang Town Committee, was sentenced to three years in prison. He had received a sentence of two years in prison with a three-year probation.

Both men were directly blamed for the fatal flooding of Xinjing Coal Mine in Zhangjiachang on May 18 last year, which killed 56 workers, according to the court.

Chen Xiqing, a former senior official of the Zhangjiachang township legislature, got two and a half years in prison. He had received one year and a half with a two-year reprieve in the first trial.

The Intermediate People's Court of Datong City ordered the retrial after it ruled that the first verdicts handed down by Yanggao People's Court had been too lenient.

Eight other officials, including Bian Zhiqiang, a former land and resource official of Zuoyun County, will also undergo retrials.

(Xinhua News Agency February 13, 2007)