Rescuers move the body of Fang Laochuan, a 46-year-old Metro construction worker, from a subway construction site which collapsed on Saturday in the city of Hangzhou. He was the first of the three bodies found yesterday, bringing the death toll of the accident to at least seven.- Shanghai Daily

Lydia Chen/Shanghai Daily news

The death toll from the cave-in of a subway tunnel under construction in Hangzhou City rose to seven yesterday as rescuers hold slim hopes for another 14 workers believed still trapped underground.

The body of worker Fang Laochuan, 46, was recovered about noon, the first of three bodies found yesterday.

New cracks near the accident site raised worries of further collapses, Xinhua news agency reported, prompting authorities to take precautionary measures.

An elementary school near the site has been temporarily closed and four houses near the site evacuated.

Rescuers were last night continuing the search for the 14 workers still trapped under the rubble after a 75-meter-wide section of road over the construction site collapsed in the capital city of Zhejiang Province at 3:20pm on Saturday.

The collapse, in Fengqing Avenue, Xiaoshan District, trapped at least 50 workers and created a huge crater where 11 vehicles were engulfed.

The vehicles have all been pulled out with no casualties reported. A total of 24 workers were initially taken to hospital, where 13 remain.

Water that flooded into the tunnel from a nearby river soon after the accident was all pumped out by yesterday, the first step in a rescue plan by experts from Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing Urban Engineering Design and Research Institute and Zhejiang University.

Six digging machines were working at the scene yesterday to excavate earth and rubble from the eastern and western sides of the tunnel construction to ease pressure in case of a second cave-in, Xinmin Evening News reported.

It said workers would also dig out a crater almost three times the size of the cave-in, a further step to head off the possibility of more collapses.

But digging work was expected to be slow as the ground was too soggy to support heavy machines, the report said.

Authorities yesterday ordered the closure of an elementary school near the site for three days. The four houses near the site were dismantled yesterday and residents have been evacuated to temporary apartments offered by the government.

Work at all 35 subway construction sites was suspended yesterday as the local government carried out inspections across Hangzhou.

Metro construction work could only resume when the city work safety administration confirmed there were no safety problems, said Hangzhou Mayor Cai Qi.

Legal representatives of all construction work sites would now be required to sign new contracts guaranteeing safety.

Construction companies would be expelled from the Hangzhou market for at least three years if any work-safety accident happened, Cai said.

Sixty percent of present Metro construction in Hangzhou is contracted to firms under the China Railway Construction Group, while 40 percent is shared by companies in Shanghai and Beijing.

Investigations into the accident are still underway, but officials with the project contractor told Zhao Tiechui, the director of State Administration of Coal Mine Safety, that cracks were seen near the road surface above the collapsed tunnel, Xinmin Evening New said yesterday.