The Heze section of the Beijing-Kowloon railway linking the capital and Hong Kong resumed low-speed operations early yesterday morning after being suspended for around 27 hours because of damage to the roadbed caused by heavy rain.

Heavy rain on Monday night led to more than 400 landslides, cave-ins and holes in the roadbed of the Heze section in East China's Shandong Province. This damaged 99 sleepers, seriously threatening the safety of trains running on that section.

The Shandong railway authority closed the section to traffic at 2 am yesterday and organized 600 workers and local farmers into teams to carry out emergency repair work.

More than 10,000 passengers were affected, with "more than 10" passenger trains and "dozens" of freight trains already on the section being forced to remain motionless, according to Xinhua News Agency.

Traffic was allowed to start moving at 5:08 am yesterday but with a speed limit of 15 kilometres per hour. The speed limit was raised to 45 kilometres per hour at 10:40 am.

The authority said it was the fourth time this year that this section of the Beijing-Kowloon railway had been hit by heavy rain.

The Shandong meteorological station yesterday forecast another night of heavy rain.

Senior railway officials from the province rushed to the site to provide emergency relief and repair the route. Trains will not resume travel at the normal speed of about 160 kilometres an hour on this section of the railway until the rain ends.

In another development, the Central Meteorological Station predicted yesterday that more heatwaves would hit South China, while torrential rain would fall in the north over the next two days.

Xinhua contributed to this story

(China Daily 08/27/2003 page1)