Thirteen people are dead and seven injured after a gas explosion in a coal mine in the southwest's Sichuan Province early yesterday.

The injured were all out of danger, Lin Shucheng, head of the provincial work safety administration, said.

The accident happened just after 3am at the Furong Coal Mine in the city of Yibin when 20 miners were working underground.

The cause of the accident is under investigation, Lin said.

As a major coal producer of the province, the state-owned mine in Gongxian County has an annual production capacity of 1.2 million tons.

The mine reported a gas explosion in December 2001, which left nine dead and four injured.

One more people was confirmed missing from Thursday's colliery gas blast in the northeastern Heilongjiang Province, bringing the number of the missing to 10, according to the local government.

Zhao Deshuang, a manager of the coal mine who went down into the mine tunnels to check the situation of the miners after the gas blast, was also missing, the rescue headquarters for the gas blast said yesterday.