Lightning strike-triggered explosion leaves nine missing in SW China

An explosion triggered by lightening strike left nine people missing in a mountainous village in southwest China's Yunnan Province Sunday, local authorities said. The nine people, who were building a road between two villages in the deep mountains in Zhenxiong County, were preparing to use explosives to blow up barriers when a lightening strike ignited the explosives, a county government spokesman said.

The workers were thought to be buried by landslide debris, the spokesman said. Their identities cannot be immediately confirmed. The local government has dispatched rescuers to search the missing people, but they cannot be reached due to weak telecommunications signals in the mountains, he said. In addition, it was raining in the county, which hampered the search, he added.

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