Three Bodies Found in Flooded Zhuhai Tunnel

The bodies of three construction workers have been found in a tunnel in southern China, several days after it suddenly flooded and a rescue operation was launched. Eleven of their colleagues are still missing.

Huang Zhihao, mayor of Zhuhai, the city in Guangdong province where the incident happened early Thursday morning, told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday that the rescue team is still about 300 meters away from where the remaining missing workers are believed to be.

The tunnel, part of the Xingye Highway that will connect with the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, had been under construction since 2017 and was slated to open for traffic in 2022. It passes through a water reservoir, from which water continues to leak into the tunnel, media reported. Rainfall is also hampering rescue operations.

In March, a landslide occurred at another tunnel along the highway, killing two workers. The incident was caused by an “unforeseeable geological abnormality of the surrounding rock mass,” the local government said at the time.

Twelve of the workers who went missing on Thursday are reportedly from central China’s Hunan province. A family member of one of the missing workers told a Hunanese media outlet that many of them hail from the same town and had worked together often. The missing are in their forties and fifties, and work away from home to take care of their families, she said.

Editor: Kevin Schoenmakers.

(Header image: An aerial view of the tunnel construction site in Zhuhai, Guangdong province, July 16, 2021. Chen Jimin/CNS/People Visual)

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