A gas explosion inside a highway tunnel under construction killed 42 people and injured 11 others in south-west China’s Sichuan province, the government said on Friday.
The explosion happened at 2pm local time on Thursday, less than 100km north-west of Chengdu, at an intersection of a highway being built to link the smaller cities of Dujiangyan and Wenchuan, the state administration for work safety said on its website.
The exact number of casualties remains unclear, officials said.
”We’re still trying to determine the exact number of victims. We’re still carrying out the rescue work,” an official at Sichuan’s work-safety office said.
Thirty-one bodies were found during an overnight search at the blast site, bringing the confirmed death toll up to 42, the Xinhua news agency said, without giving details on how the other victims were discovered.
Most of the victims were construction workers, it said.
Rescuers on Friday continued to search through the rubble, while medical workers had arrived on the scene to treat the injured, officials and Xinhua said.
”We’ve found 42 bodies. We’re mainly trying to find other victims and saving the injured now,” the official said, adding that more than 50 rescuers were at the site.
Work-safety authorities have launched an investigation into the cause of the accident.
”Initial investigation shows it was a gas explosion. We have to wait until the end of the rescue to see the cause,” the official said.
Local authorities were blocking access for journalists. There were about 400 police officers posted at the scene, state television station CCTV said.
The reports, however, did not give any details on how many people were working at the site at the time of the explosion.
The company constructing the tunnel was the state-owned China Railway Engineering Company’s branch in Sichuan, Xinhua said. — AFP
