Railway authority has temporarily closed the South Xinjiang Railway in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on Sunday as hurricane-force winds of up to 117 km per hour swept over parts of the railway, Xinhua reported. Two trains with thousands of passengers aboard running from Kashi to Urumqi, the region's capital, were delayed, while at least six others shuttling between Urumqi and southern parts of Xinjiang were cancelled. The South Xinjiang Railway was closed at around 9:00 a.m. Sunday and had not opened to traffic by 5:00 p.m. as winds remained very strong, according to the enquiry office of the South Railway Station of Urumqi. In February, hurricane-force winds derailed 11 carriages of a train in Xinjiang, killing three passengers and injuring 34 others. In April last year the windows of a train from Urumqi to Beijing were cracked by a sandstorm and the train was delayed 32 hours near where the fatal accident occurred.
