One man died and another was critically wounded in an explosion in a suspected drugs lab in Friesland on Tuesday night.

Part of the lab, housed in a barn in Haule, collapsed but the explosion did not result in a fire, police said. It is unclear as yet what sort of drugs were being manufactured.

Last year Dutch police discovered 93 labs where synthetic drugs such as ecstasy were produced, or heroin and cocaine were processed.

Most of the labs were situated in Noord Brabant, Noord Holland, Limburg and Gelderland, but the bulk of the heroin and cocaine processing labs – 21 in all – were in Noord and Zuid-Holland.