Fifteen hikers killed in a flash flood at a scenic gorge in Chongqing turned a deaf ear to warnings of an impending storm from local villagers.

The 35-member hiking party, comprising 18 women and 17 men, were organized via a Chongqing-based travel website for the tour of Tanzhangxia Canyon in Wanzhou district last Sunday.

By Monday afternoon, 15 bodies were retrieved; 11 of them have been identified by family members. Four others remain missing. Two of the 16 survivors are in the hospital, while the rest have returned to their homes.

A villager named Lu Yanshuang said he had warned the group of the possible dangers from the looming rainstorms but was ignored, People's Daily reported yesterday.

The self-organized group dodged the canyon's ticket office and snuck into a forbidden area of the canyon around 1 pm, led by a local villager. One survivor, identified by the online name of Xiaozhangge, said the rain started soon afterward.

The group, he said, paid little attention to the rain "because the rain was not coming down hard all the time and the water level in the canyon was not building up."

Approximately two hours after entering the canyon, a flash flood swept many of the hikers into a waterway.

"I heard a roaring sound while walking at the bottom of the gorge. Suddenly the flood, several meters high, crushed upon us and swept us several kilometers away," Deng Ke, another survivor, told the Xinhua News Agency.

"I grabbed a rattan and climbed about 30 meters along the mountain until I met some villagers," he said.

According to the Chongqing meteorological bureau, the rain was the heaviest downpour in five decades in that region of Chongqing.

The hiking party was not the only group told to cancel their trip. Another group of 47 tourists had been stopped by the canyon administrator.

Despite the group's folly, Chongqing municipal government officials said they would compensate the families of the 11 dead hikers with 20,000 yuan (US$2,850) in relief funds.

Since most of the hikers had also purchased insurance policies valued up to 100,000 yuan, their families would also receive compensation from the insurance companies, local government officials said.

More than 1,900 police officers, soldiers, medical staff and local residents were involved in the search for the missing hikers.

Deaths related to self-organized hiking expeditions have been increasing in recent years, experts said.

Zhang Zhijian, secretary-general of China Mountaineering Association, said since 2000, at least 10 people have been killed in outdoor hiking trips each year. Previously, deaths mostly were caused by mountain climbing incidents.

Lin Jian, a researcher with Beijing Sport University, said that many netizens who joined such self-organized hiking groups know little about each other. In times of trouble, it's difficult to establish a group leader who is qualified, the researcher said. They are unaware of the dangers of outdoor activities and lack experience and rescue skills.

So far, no laws regulate outdoor activities. Anyone can organize hiking tours on the Internet without reporting to a local sports or tourism authority.

(China Daily July 14, 2009)