Heavy rain leaves 4 dead, 48 missing in China's Sichuan

Four people were confirmed dead and 48 others missing, after rainstorms hit Jinyang County in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Sichuan Province, on August 21, local authorities said on Wednesday.

Yuan Gang, deputy director of the provincial public security department, said at a press conference that rainstorms triggered a flash flood at a highway construction site. Five people from the construction company and a labor service company were detained on Monday. They are accused of failing to report the accident or deliberately providing false information about the accident.

The police investigation has confirmed that there were 201 people at the construction site when the disaster occurred, of which 149 escaped the danger.

Police continue to probe the case, while the search for the missing people is still underway.

In the early morning of August 21, a flash flood hit Jinyang due to a short spell of heavy downpour. The flooding washed away the make-shift houses of the workers in the steel bar processing site of the Shudao Group that was undertaking the highway construction project in the lower reaches of the Lugaolin River, resulting in the casualties.

More than 2,000 people have joined the search and rescue operations. The bodies of four victims were retrieved between August 23 and 27.

A police investigation has found that the people in charge of the project safety and those on duty on August 21 ignored the rainstorm warning and evacuation alerts sent by the local flood prevention and emergency management departments.

No measures were adopted to evacuate the workers from the site prior to the occurrence of the accident.