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Thunderstorms caused a power failure on the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway on Sunday, paralyzing southbound trains for 90 minutes, railway authorities said.

It was the first major malfunction since the line was launched on June 30.

The Beijing railway bureau said in an announcement that thunderstorms and gales in Shandong province caused a glitch to the power supply network between Qufu and Zaozhuang at 6:10 pm on Sunday.

The problem was fixed at 7:37 pm and operations resumed soon afterwards, it said. Nineteen trains heading south on the 1,318-km rail line would arrive later than scheduled, the bureau said.

Shanghai railway bureau also said, through its official micro blog, that some 11 trains heading to Shanghai had been delayed for more than two hours because of the power failure.

The Shanghai station has arranged additional buses and taxies to carry passengers. According to netizen's accounts on micro blogs, the first train to be hit by the power failure was G151, which left Beijing at 3:30 pm and was scheduled to arrive at Shanghai at 9 pm.

The train suddenly stopped on a bridge, during a storm, at around 6:10 pm, said netizen "Susan Chen" in her micro blog. "The light is off, air conditioning is off, carriage is stifling, and there is a lack of oxygen," she said.

Netizen "Banalin", who took the train to his hometown Changzhou in Jiangsu province, wrote in his micro blog: "After waiting in the sweltering carriages for more than half an hour, passengers began to lose patience and became agitated."

Another passenger wrote that the public address system on the train kept explaining that the breakdown was due to the heavy rain.After being stationary for more than two hours, with the carriage lights suffering intermittent disruption, G151 finally resumed running at 8:10 pm. Passengers were later given bread and water.

A passenger surnamed Wang on train G21, which set off from Beijing at 5 pm and was scheduled to reach Shanghai by 21:55 pm, said her train was stranded halfway for one hour in Jinan, Shandong. "Some 1,000 passengers sat in the darkness. Air conditioners did not work during this time," she said.

Questions:

1. What caused the power failure?

2. What time did the glitch occur?

3. How many trains heading south arrived late?

Answers:

1. Thunderstorms

2. 6:10 pm

3. Nineteen

（中國日報網英語點津 Julie 編輯）

About the broadcaster:

Lee Hannon is Chief Editor at China Daily with 15-years experience in print and broadcast journalism. Born in England, Lee has traveled extensively around the world as a journalist including four years as a senior editor in Los Angeles. He now lives in Beijing and is happy to move to China and join the China Daily team.