Police divers on Friday found the body of one of five workers missing since an undersea tunnel being built in Okayama Prefecture collapsed and flooded earlier in the week.
The police later identified the victim as Akihiro Minamitsubo, 57, from Hokkaido, adding the body was found in the flooded shaft.
Kajima Corp. earlier the same day had begun removing rubble from the flooded shaft that leads to a collapsed undersea tunnel at an oil refinery of JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corp. in Okayama Prefecture so that divers could resume their search for five missing workers.
Kajima said it could not confirm a report that one of the missing workers reported an electrical problem during a phone call just before the sea roared into the tunnel. Kajima has confirmed that a machine digging the tunnel was halted 50 minutes before the accident.