More than 20 people were killed in an accidental blast in eastern Sri Lankan district of Batticaloa including two Chinese nationals, defense officials said Friday.

However, military officials said earlier that over 60 people were killed and more than 45 injured in the blast on Friday which rocked the Karadiyanaru police station, about 400 km by road away from the capital city of Colombo.

The Chinese ambassador to Sri Lanka Yang Xiuping departed Colombo on Friday heading for Batticaloa to carry out on-site inspection of the incident, the embassy said.

The lady Ambassador Yang Xiuping had earlier expressed her shock and concern over the blast and her condolence with the death of two Chinese people.

The Chinese embassy had despatched officials to Karadiyanaru to investigate the blast, the embassy said.

Karadiyanaru is a fishing village that was previously under control of the separatist Tamil Tiger group, which fought for more than three decades for a homeland for the Tamil ethnic group.

The civil war ended in May last year when the government troops crushed the rebels in military offensive.

According to the military spokesman Ubhaya Madawela, a container carrying the explosives exploded and triggered the explosion of the next two containers at around 11.45 a.m. local time (0615 GMT).

Most of the dead are policemen, local police said.