A man was sentenced to death on Monday after being convicted of causing a blast in central China that killed two people and wounded several others, state media reported.

Wang Haijian was given the death penalty at a court in Wuhan city, and his associates Wang Wei and Wang Anan were jailed for 10 and six years respectively, the China News Service said.

The three were found responsible for an explosion that went off near a bank in Wuhan in December, which authorities at the time said occurred during an attempted robbery, killing two passers-by.

It was unclear if the three are related, and calls made to the Wuhan Intermediate Court -- where they were tried -- went unanswered.

Bomb attacks have been increasingly frequent in China in recent years, and are often carried out by individuals angry over perceived injustices, business disputes or other pressures associated with rapid modernisation.

On Thursday, a woman blew herself up to protest the demolition of her house in the southwestern province of Yunnan, killing two people and injuring 14, the official Xinhua news agency said.

The woman, who also died on the spot, was at a local government office negotiating compensation for the loss of her home when she detonated explosives attached to her body, it said.

Late last year, a man who set off explosives in 2010 at a tax office in the central province of Hunan -- killing four people and injuring at least 17 others -- was executed.

Liu Zhuiheng, who sold hardware, was reportedly frustrated over the state of his business, which had sustained losses.

According to the rights group Amnesty International, China executes more people every year than the rest of the world combined.

These have in the past typically carried out by a bullet to the back of the head, but in recent years the state has increasingly been using lethal injection.