China sentences 6 in nightclub fire that killed 44

China has sentenced six people, including two former police officers and a firefighter, to jail for a nightclub fire that killed 44 people in the southern boomtown of Shenzhen, state media reported.

The fire started Sept. 20 when a fireworks performance ignited flammable material on the ceiling of a club in the Longgang district of Shenzhen city, just across the border from Hong Kong.

More than 300 people were in the club when the fire started and 64 were injured in an ensuing stampede, Xinhua said. The hall of the nightclub was on the third floor of a marketplace and was accessible from the staircase only by a narrow passageway, state media reported last year.

Yang Zhouwu, former chief of the Tongle police station, was sentenced to 13 years in prison for taking bribes worth 300,000 yuan ($43,865) from the King of the Dancers nightclub and for dereliction of duty, the official Xinhua News Agency said late Friday.

Chen Feng, former head of the local firefighting squad, and former policeman Liu Libiao were sentenced to six years in jail for dereliction of duty, Xinhua said. The others received jail terms between one to five years, it said.

The club was unlicensed and had not passed a fire safety test before it opened, Xinhua said. Yang and Liu had on many occasions received money from club workers and had not investigated illegal activities there, it said.

Fires and acidents in bars, theaters and other public places are common in China despite government pledges to improve safety. Many are caused by negligence and lax safety procedures, such as a lack of fire extinguishers and emergency exits.

In China's worst nightclub disaster in recent years, a fire blamed on a weldng accident tore through a disco in the central city of Luoyang in December 2000, killing 309 people.