BEIJING, Dec 23: Rescuers were searching for survivors on Friday after a gas explosion killed 42 people and injured 11 in a highway tunnel being built in southwestern China, officials said.

The blast in Sichuan province was the latest in a series of deadly industrial mishaps amid China’s rapid economic growth. Two coal mine blasts and a mine flooding in the past five weeks have killed nearly 300 people.

The gas explosion happened on Thursday, less than 100kms northwest of Chengdu, on a highway being built to link the smaller cities of Dujiangyan and Wenchuan, the State Administration for Work Safety said on its website.

“We’re still trying to determine the exact number of victims,” an official at Sichuan’s work safety office said. “We’re still carrying out the rescue work.”

Thirty-one bodies were found during an overnight search at the blast site, raising the confirmed death toll to 42 after 11 bodies were found earlier, the Xinhua news agency said. Most of the victims were construction workers.

More than 50 rescuers were searching through the rubble while medical workers had arrived at the scene, officials said.

“We’re mainly trying to find other victims and saving the injured now,” the official said. Work safety authorities had launched an investigation.

Local authorities were blocking access to journalists. Some 400 police officials were at the scene, state television 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. —AFP