Rescuers have found seven bodies of students killed after a flash flood hit a dried-up riverbed they were crossing in China's far-western Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, local authorities said on Friday. Another one was still missing.

The victims, all girls from a local elementary school, were making their way home after school at around 7 p.m. Wednesday when a flood caused by rainstorm occurred at a dried-up stream in Qingshuihe Town of Huocheng County, according to Huocheng Health Bureau.

A 400-member team was still searching for the missing, it said.

Huocheng was about 700 kilometers from Urumqi, the regional capital. A seven-hour rainstorm hit the area on Wednesday and the water coming down the mountain damaged several sections of the No. 312 National Highway that links eastern Shanghai City with Yining City of Xinjiang.

(Xinhua News Agency May 3, 2008)