Forty-five people were sentenced to jail terms of up to 20 years on Friday in connection with a landslide that killed 73 people in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, in December 2015.

Courts in Shenzhen found 26 people directly responsible for the work safety incident and other 19 were found guilty of related crimes. 

The courts said the Shenzhen Yixianglong Investment Development Company, which operated the dump site, disregarded Chinese regulations and workers’ security.

The chairman of the company, Long Renfu, was sentenced to 20 years in prison and fined 1.4 million US dollars.

The landslide on December 20, 2015, covered an area of more than 10 hectares, engulfing 33 buildings, and causing economic losses of 128 million US dollars.

The disaster was characterized as an industrial accident because too much waste construction material had been dumped in a landfill. The investigation said the cause of the disaster was ineffective drainage of water at the industrial estate.