SHENYANG – Although some traffic-flow problems still exist in Liaoning after Typhoon Damrey recently tore through the province in northeast China, the major railways were operating again on Sunday.
Suspended rail services along three major lines running through Liaoning, namely the Shenyang-Dalian, Shenyang-Shanhaiguan, and Shenyang-Dandong links, had been resumed by noon Sunday as a result of more than 30 hours' continuous repair work, local railway authorities said.
The Shenyang-Shanhaiguan Railway, a section of the Beijing-Harbin railway line, serves as a major trunk connecting Beijing with the country's northeastern provinces.
Operation of all the bullet trains between Beijing and Shenyang, capital of Liaoning, which had been disrupted as of Saturday morning, has resumed, while other passenger trains in the province were expected to resume services gradually, said the Shenyang Railway Bureau.
Highway traffic in the province had also been seriously affected by the rain-triggered floods as of Sunday morning.
According to statistics from the provincial transportation department, traffic services on 24 major trunk highways, 36 county-level highways and 176 rural roads had been interrupted as of 6 a. m. Sunday.
The provincial highway department has sent nearly 4,500 workers armed with mechanical equipment to assist in the rescue and repair work.
As repair work on the flooded roads continues, passenger transport services are expected to resume gradually on Sunday.
As of Sunday afternoon, traffic flow was almost back to normal on the Shenyang-Dalian and Shenyang-Dandong expressways.
Typhoon-triggered flooding left one person dead and another five missing Friday night in the port city of Dalian, the local government said.
Flooding has forced the evacuation of 88,773 people and left 16 reservoirs swollen in the province.
Since floods in Liaoning resulted in the suspension of 70 passenger-train services and delay of more than 100 trains on the Beijing-Harbin Railway on Saturday, the Beijing Railway Bureau added refund windows on Sunday in its downtown railway station. It also provided food and drinking water to stranded passengers.
In the eastern Shandong province, Damrey had affected more than 2 million people and left five people dead as of Saturday, according to statistics released by the civil affairs department.
About 200,000 hectares cropland were damaged, 1,718 houses collapsed and the direct economic losses in the province totaled 1.69 billion yuan (265.2 million U.S. dollars). Shandong issued a three-level emergency response for the floods on Sunday, said the provincial flood control and drought relief headquarters.
The southeastern Fujian province saw heavy rains on Saturday. And later a flood-damaged section on the Wenzhou-Fuzhou Railway was repaired forcing the suspension of 22 bullet trains on Sunday, according to the Nanchang Railway Bureau.
Two typhoons, Damrey and Saola, which made landfalls in east China on Friday, had caused severe and widespread damage in seven, mostly coastal provinces in China, according to a statement from the National Commission for Disaster Reduction and the Ministry of Civil Affairs on Sunday.
The typhoons had left eight people dead and eight missing and forced the evacuation of about 1.3 million residents in provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, Shandong, Hebei and Liaoning as of 9 a.m. Sunday, according to the statement.
– Xinhua
