(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-08-07 22:14

ENSHI, Hubei -- The death toll from the railway tunnel flood in central China's Hubei Province has risen to three and the chances of survival for the seven missing workers are slim, rescuers said on Tuesday.

One of the 19 injured died on Monday after emergency treatment failed. Two bodies were found late Monday night after more than 200 people were dispatched to search for the trapped workers, said Tan Zhengbiao, general manager of China Railway 16th Group Co., Ltd, the tunnel builders.

However, the rescue headquarters reduced the size of the rescue team on Tuesday afternoon after deciding there is almost no possibility of survival for the seven trapped.

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.

Experts and rescuers said the workers were possibly buried by mud and rocks at two sites underground.

The headquarters plan to set up an investigation team involving officials of the local government and the State Administration of Work Safety to ascertain the cause of the accident.

The fatal flooding occurred at around 1:00 a.m. 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.

A group of officials, headed by Wang Dexue, vice director of the State Administration of Work Safety, visited the workers at the Minzu hospital Monday afternoon, offering 1,000 yuan (132 U.S. dollars) to each of the injured.

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.