Kunming, China— Five road workers were killed Saturday when flash flooding swept through a highway construction site in Yunnan Province.
The flood hit at around 2:30 p.m. local time in a gorge in Fugong County, Nujiang Prefecture. The crew was working on a retaining wall for the S237 provincial highway. Heavy rain upstream sent a wall of water down a dry tributary. It hit the site without warning. Workers and equipment were washed into the Nujiang River.
The county emergency management bureau said eight workers were at the site. Three managed to cling to rebar and were pulled out by colleagues. Five were swept away. Their bodies were recovered downstream over the next six hours. The search involved more than 100 rescuers, including police, firefighters, and local villagers.
Yunnan has been under a blue rainstorm warning since Friday. The Nujiang valley is prone to flash floods because steep slopes funnel water fast. The provincial meteorological bureau said 70 millimeters of rain fell in two hours in the hills above the site. No flood warning had been issued for that specific tributary.
The construction project is run by a state-owned road builder. The company said the crew had been told to stop work if water levels rose. Workers at the site said the river was low in the morning and rose within minutes.
"The water came like a train, brown and full of logs," one survivor told rescuers. The description matches the sudden nature of mountain flash floods that have killed dozens in Yunnan this year.
The Yunnan Department of Transport has ordered all mountain road works to halt during rainstorm alerts. Safety inspectors are examining whether the site had an evacuation route and whether weather monitoring was adequate. The company faces a work safety investigation.
Families of the victims have been notified. The local government said compensation and support will be provided. The highway project is suspended.
The river level remains high. The recovery operation has ended, but monitoring continues.
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