VietNamNet Bridge – While building a water tunnel for the La Hieng hydroelectric plant in the central province of Phu Yen, water suddenly overflowed, sweeping away three workers on September 27. Until today, September 30, they are still missing.

Phu Yen Province authorities have mobilized over 60 soldiers, divers and two rubber boats to search for the missing workers in the tunnel. In addition, seven pumping machines with a total capacity of nearly 600cu.m/h are working. The ventilators and oxygen pumpers are also operating at full capacity.

After 3 days, they have just found an on-the-job protection jacket floating in the tunnel at 2pm on September 29. Through testing, the authorities determined that this is the jacket of a Chinese victim, Shu Zhou Ming.

By 6pm yesterday, September 29, there were about 5,000 m3 of water in the tunnel, down nearly 10,000 m3 compared with the evening of September 28.

Mr. Tran Van Ut, the head of supervision team of La Hieng Hydropower Plant 2 said: "Perhaps the three victims were swept till the end of the tunnel."

Earlier, around 8.15pm on September 26, during the night shift of workers of La Hieng 2 hydroelectric plant, the flood unexpectedly came, sweeping away two Vietnamese workers named Nguyen Cong Linh, 26, Nguyen Thanh Cuong, 28, and a Chinese technician - Mr. Zho Ming Sho, 51.

La Hieng hydropower plant has a capacity of 18 MW, with a total investment of over VND505 billion ($25 million), invested by Phu Yen VRG Company. It is located in in Phu Mo commune, Dong Xuan district of Phu Yen province.

The tunnel crossing a mountain has a length of 3.5 km long, more than 4m in diameter. At present, over 1.7km has been dug. Since the tunnel is still unfinished, the contractor built a dike to prevent water but as the flood unexpected came, water concentrated upon the tunnel, causing the incident.

Le Ha