Among the dead were 39 children under 10 and 46 people over 60, Xinhua said. Two of the dead were well workers, the rest farmers and their families.
China has a notoriously poor work safety record. More than 120,000 people died in work-related accidents from January to November this year.
Chongqing and the neighboring province of Sichuan are among China's major natural gas producing areas.
The well where the blow-out occurred is owned by China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), parent of oil major PetroChina.
In August, PetroChina began construction of a US$400 million pipeline to pump natural gas from Chongqing to central China.
In one of the world's worst industrial disasters, a poisonous gas leak at a Union Carbide plant in India in December 1984 killed 3,000 people. Thousands more died in following years and tens of thousands were left with lifelong illnesses.
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