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At least three men have died and 11 are still missing as rescue workers continue to search a tunnel which flooded during construction on Thursday in Zhuhai, in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong. Photo: Handout
China

3 dead as southern China tunnel flood rescue effort reaches 6th day

  • Rescuers are still about 300 metres from where the remaining 11 construction workers are believed to be trapped
  • Geological conditions are hampering the rescue operation after most of the water was pumped from the tunnel
China society
Maryann Xue
Maryann Xue
Why you can trust SCMP
At least three of the 14 construction workers trapped for nearly a week in a flooded tunnel in southern China have died, as nearly 2,000 rescuers continue their desperate attempt to reach the remaining men.

Two of the dead were found on Monday afternoon, according to the local government of Zhuhai in Guangdong province, with the third discovered later.

The workers were more than a kilometre (0.62 miles) from the entrance to the Shijinshan tunnel – under construction as part of a major expressway linking the city to the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge – when it was inundated at around 3.30am on Thursday.
The trapped construction workers were more than a kilometre from the entrance to the tunnel – part of an expressway linking to the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge – when it was inundated on Thursday. Photo: AP

“We are fighting for every second to save them,” Zhuhai mayor Huang Zhihao said on Tuesday. While the rescuers had advanced more than 850 metres, they were still about 300 metres from where the workers were believed to be trapped, he said.

Most of the water was pumped from the tunnel, which runs under a reservoir, in the early stage of the rescue by the teams which have been drawn from Zhuhai and surrounding districts.

The mayor pledged to make public the results of an investigation into the cause of the flooding. “We will find out the cause of the accident, and bear whatever responsibilities that should be borne,” he said.

According to local media reports, 12 of the 14 trapped workers are from Shimen county in neighbouring Hunan province. The mother of one of the men was quoted by Jimu News, a social media platform run by the Hubei Daily newspaper group, as saying her son had called her just a few days before the accident. “He said he would be back when the citrus at home is ripe,” she is reported to have said.

Among the trapped workers are two sets of brothers, according to Jimu News, while most of the men are believed to come from the same village. “Everyone is a fellow villager. They introduced each other and went to the same construction site,” one person was quoted as saying.

Nearly 2,000 rescuers are continuing to search for 11 construction workers trapped in a flooded tunnel in Zhuhai since the early hours of Thursday. Photo: Handout

Gan Zhanzi, senior geotechnical engineer with the Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Geology, told state news agency Xinhua that the workers were believed to be trapped on a downhill slope, making the rescue effort difficult.

The on-site rescue headquarters also said the narrowness of the tunnel, combined with other geological conditions, was complicating the operation.

The accident was the second to occur in the tunnel since March, when a collapsed wall killed two workers.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Race to rescue trapped workers as 3 die
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