Rescuers are struggling on Wednesday to reach seven workers who
have been trapped in a flooded railway tunnel in central China's Hubei Province since early Sunday morning.
"But the chances of survival for them are slim," a rescuer told
Xinhua.
The fatal flooding occurred at around 1:00 AM on Sunday in the
Yesanguan rail tunnel in Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous
Prefecture, trapping 52 workers, and 43 workers were rescued later
the same day.
Three workers were confirmed to have died, following the death
of one of the rescued workers on Monday after emergency treatment
failed and the retrieve of two bodies late Monday night from the
tunnel.
The workers were possibly buried by mud and rocks at two sites
underground, said Tan Zhengbiao, general manager of China Railway
16th Group Co., Ltd, the tunnel builders.
Rescuers are still searching the tunnels, repairing shafts that
have caved in, pumping out water and clearing up the silt
underground. The runoff inside the tunnel was three cubic meters
per second on Tuesday afternoon.
The 14-km tunnel is the longest of the 121 tunnels along the
Yiwan Railway, which links Yichang City in Hubei Province with
Wanzhou in Chongqing Municipality.
Rescuers said the accident happened at a site 240 meters from
the tunnel mouth.
Silt has clogged an area 150 meters from the entrance to the
tunnel and, in some areas, the mud and rock reach four meters high,
the local rescue headquarters said.
Heavy rains have triggered severe flooding and mudslides in many
parts of central China in the past few weeks.
(Xinhua News Agency August 8, 2007)