Nine miners were confirmed dead and seven others remain missing in Friday's colliery gas explosion in southwest China's Guizhou Province, the provincial work safety supervision bureau said Saturday.

Twenty-five miners were working down the pit when the blast went off and caused a cave-in early on Friday at Shagou colliery in Panlong town, in the city of Liupanshui. Nine of them escaped and 16 went missing.

By Saturday afternoon, rescuers have found nine dead bodies and are still searching for the other seven.

Rescue work was extremely difficult because the laneways were destroyed, ruins blocked the way for rescuers to go down and ventilation was extremely poor, said Chen Fuqing, vice director of the provincial coal mine safety bureau.

Police have arrested the owner of the mine, a native of central China's Hunan Province, who fled the site after the accident.

Shagou colliery has a designed annual output of 30,000 tons.

(Xinhua News Agency November 20, 2005)