Twenty-eight miners were trapped in a colliery flood in southwest China's Sichuan Province on Sunday, the provincial work safety bureau said.

The accident happened at 11 a.m. in Weiyuan County of Neijiang City, a spokesman with the bureau told Xinhua.

Altogether 41 miners were working underground when a pit of Batian Coal Mine was flooded. Thirteen of them escaped, the spokesman said.

He said rescue work was going on and the whereabouts of the trapped miners were not immediately known.