Two brothers in Wuhan, Hubei province, have won respect as dutiful offspring for donating their skin to help their critically burned father, the People's Daily reported on Wednesday.

Liu Yang and Liu Pei both put their lives at risk to donate for their father's skin transplants after he was seriously burned in a work accident on June 2013.

They were told by the hospital that skin from direct relatives would be the best match, so both volunteered to be donors.

Their father is unaware of the origins of the transplanted skin because the brothers did not want to worry him. Between them, the brothers made three separate donations in 2013.

Financial donations from the public of more than 1.3 million yuan ($212,091) have been made to the Liu's since their story became public.