BEIJING, July 17 (Reuters) - China sentenced a man to death and jailed another 28 people for up to life on Tuesday for their roles in a massive slavery and child labour scandal involving scorching brickworks.

The owners, managers and thugs at the prison-like kilns which state media said numbered in the hundreds in the northern province of Shanxi were convicted of charges including forced labour and illegal detention, an official said.

Zhao Yanbing received the death penalty from the Linfen Intermediate People's Court for maiming, and leading to the death of, a worker at a kiln in Hongtong county, at the centre of the scandal.

Heng Tinghan, who ran the kiln where 31 workers -- including nine with mental illnesses -- laboured 14-16 hours a day for little or no pay, was jailed for life, said Liu Jimin, deputy head of the Shanxi provincial high court.

Chinese said in June that hundreds of farmers, teenagers and some children had been forced or lured to work in kilns like the one Zhao helped run as a thug, enduring prison-like confinement and brutal beatings.

TV news showed released workers with emaciated bodies and festering wounds, and China's leaders promised to punish those involved.

"The black brick kiln incident is an ugly social phenomenon and an ulcer on socialist China...we must get rid of it," Liu told a news conference in Shanxi's provincial capital Taiyuan which was broadcast live on state television. Shanxi authorities announced penalties against 95 low-level officials on Monday for lax supervision and dereliction of duty that allowed the brick kilns to exist.