(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-03-15 09:06

URUMQI: Five workers were pulled out of a tunnel under construction on Friday, after being trapped for 25 hours by an avalanche that killed at least four in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

Rescuers pull a worker out of the snow on Friday. [China Daily]

Twelve others buried in snow more than 50 m deep remained missing.

The avalanche occurred at about 10 am on Thursday, when five workers were in the tunnel and another team about 1 km from the project in the Kazak autonomous prefecture of Ili.

The five rescued workers were under emergency treatment in a local hospital. Doctors said they were weak but not in critical condition.

However, chances of survival for the 12 trapped were slim, as more than 1 million cu m of snow piled up at the tunnel entrance made rescue operations very difficult, Zhang Yun, the prefecture's deputy Party chief, said.

Eight excavators have been deployed at the site for the search.

The tunnel is at a remote area known as Guozigou. It is about 500 km from Urumqi, the regional capital.

The contractor of the 3.8-km tunnel, part of a cross-border pipeline project to send gas from Turkmenistan to Shanghai, had dug 260 m of the tunnel when the accident occurred.