Wednesday was the fifth day of efforts to find missing workers trapped in a collapsed subway construction site in the eastern city of Hangzhou. Emergency workers say there is no longer any hope of finding survivors. A steel support frame has been erected to prevent any further collapses as the clean-up continues.

Work is continuing around the clock. Huge quantities of mud have been hauled out of the collapsed construction site. This has increased pressure around the site and created more large fissures.

Huge quantities of mud have been hauled out of the collapsed construction site.

Emergency workers say with the steel supports erected, the remaining mud should be cleared away over the next day.

The Hangzhou Subway Group has received 2 million yuan in the first batch of insurance pay-outs.

A 75-meter section of a subway tunnel under construction collapsed on Saturday afternoon. Eight people have been confirmed dead, and 13 others are still missing. Eleven other workers have received hospital treatment.

The victims are mostly rural migrant laborers from neighboring Anhui Province. Many of them had received little training before starting work on the subway project.

The accident is one of the worst in China's history of subway construction.

(CCTV November 21, 2008)