(Beijing) – Three executives and 11 government officials have been sentenced to prison terms over an explosion at a factory in 2014 that killed 146 people, state media has reported.

The disaster at Zhongrong Metal Products Co. in Kunshan, in the eastern province of Jiangsu, on August 2, 2014, killed 146 people and injured 114 others. The blast at the plant, which polished car wheels, was caused by excessive levels of metallic dust in the air, a team of inspectors sent by the State Council, the country's cabinet, found.

The team also said the incident caused 351 million yuan in "economic losses," meaning damage to factory and compensation that the government had to pay to victims and their families.

Three of the company's executives – Wu Jitao, Lin Bochang and Wu Shengxian – were found guilty in Kunshan City People's Court of causing a major work safety accident, Xinhua News Agency reported on February 3.

Eleven local officials in charge of work safety supervision and environmental protection were found guilty of dereliction of duty. The official news agency did not say where those government figures were tried, and it was unclear when any of the verdicts were reached.

The sentences for the 14 ranged from three years in prison to seven and half years, Xinhua reported.

Thirty-five other officials were punished by the government, the cabinet's investigative team said earlier. Shi Heping, the vice governor of Jiangsu, was the most senior, receiving demerits. Lu Jun, the former mayor of Kunshan, was removed from his posts in the Communist Party and government.

Victims of the explosion have said they are worried that the government will stop compensating them for medical treatment they require.

One person who was hurt told Caixin in December that the government recently told injured workers they had to undergo assessments of their injuries to determine how much compensation they will get. Workers who suffered lighter injuries will receive a one-off payout, while those who were critically hurt can stay in the hospital and get 90 percent of their salaries.

This prompted dozens of injured workers and their relatives to gather outside a city government building in Kunshan to demand that details of the payout plan be clarified. More than a dozen people were detained after clashing with police, witnesses said, and one said a few people were hurt in the incident.

China has suffered a slew of workplace accidents recently. A massive blast at a chemicals warehouse facility in August in the northern port city of Tianjin resulted in more than 170 deaths, making headlines around the world and shocking many in China. Less well known is that recently at least three fireworks factories – two of them illegal – have blown up, accidents that killed at total of at least 20 people.

(Rewritten by Chen Na)