By 19:30 PM Tuesday, three workers remained missing after fifteen others out of the 18 trapped during a flash flood inside a water diversion tunnel were rescued in east China's Zhejiang Province.

The diversion tunnel is located near Qingyuan, a mountainous county in Zhejiang. The effort to search the missing still went on, according to the county water control department of Qingyuan in Zhejiang Province, which partook in the rescue operation.

The 18 workers came to do grouting inside the Huangxiukeng water diversion tunnel being built for a local hydropower station early Monday as usual, but it rained hard outside the tunnel.

The water diversion tunnel was flooded around 4:33 AM Monday amid the ensuing flash flood which drove up the water table in the nearby reservoir connected with the tunnel.

Being told of the mishap, the hydropower station authorities sent workers to plug the sluice gate between the reservoir and the tunnel, while reporting the mishap to the Qingyuan County government.

Fifteen of the trapped workers were rescued after some flooded water was pumped by motor-driven fire control pumps, local sources said, adding that it needs at least five hours from now to bump out all flooded water, about 4,500 cubic meters, from the diversion tunnel.

(Xinhua News Agency June 7, 2006)