Two people were killed and another left missing while 23 were injured in a gas blast at a coal mine in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Friday, local authorities said Saturday.

The accident occurred at around 8 p.m. Friday in Hami City after a team attempted to extinguish an underground fire at the mine, said the municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China in a statement.

All 23 injured miners were hospitalized, and three of them were in critical conditions, said the statement.

The miners working underground when the fire broke out were all lifted to safety.

The mine was operated by Lu'an Xinjiang Coal Chemical Industry Co. Ltd.

The company, founded in 2007 with capital of 1.5 billion yuan (220 million U.S. dollars), has an annual coal output of 5 million tonnes.