A total of 1,650 railway workers and their families were trapped by floodwater on Wednesday in the western part of Hunan Province, central China, while sections of a railway line were damaged by landslides, local railway officials said.

The workers and their families were trapped when four living quarters owned by Huaihua Railway Group Co. were flooded with water up to five meters deep due to continuous rainstorms during the past two days, said the officials.

The company has mobilized its employees to rescue those trapped in the living quarters by Wednesday night.

Meanwhile, torrential rains in the mountains have triggered 24 landslides along a railway line in the Zhangjiajie area in the western part of the province, disrupting passenger transportation.

The railway bed on the Jiaozuo-Liuzhou railway line has been washed away in some sections, while several hundred meters of railway lines have been buried by landslides in several locations.

The Jiaozuo-Liuzhou Railway Line runs 1,645 km from Jiaozuo city in Henan Province, central China, to Liuzhou City in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, south China.

The railway company has dispatched 1,000 employees and farmers to clear the landslide and repair the damaged railway bed.

(People's Daily July 10, 2003)