The accident took place late Tuesday in Weixin county in Yunnan province, the official Xinhua news agency quoted a county government spokesman as saying.

Thirteen miners managed to escape, the spokesman said, adding that all workers had been accounted for.

The mine's managers have been taken into police custody, and an investigation into the cause of the accident was ongoing, the report said.

Last year, 2,433 people died in coal mine accidents in China, according to official statistics, or a rate of more than six workers per day.