A woman jumped from a subway platform in downtown Beijing onto the tracks on Monday afternoon, forcing service to suspend for 19 minutes, the local authority said.

The woman was pulled from the No. 1 Line that links the city's west and east areas, a Beijing Mass Transit Railway Operation Co. Ltd. spokesman said. It was not immediately known why she jumped.

Gongzhufen Station staff immediately cut the power to save the unidentified woman after they saw her jump at about 4:35 p.m., the spokesman said.

Train services resumed 19 minutes later when the woman was rescued, he said, without providing details.

Subway operations in Beijing, Shanghai and other cities, are sometimes disrupted by people attempting suicide by jumping and hitting the moving trains.

Beijing, the host for the Olympics on Aug. 8 to 24 and the Paralympics Sept. 6 to 17, now has eight subway lines with 200 km of track, transporting millions of passengers daily.

The capital newly opened three lines on Saturday with a total length of 58 km. The Airport Line links the downtown area with the new Terminal 3 at the Beijing Capital International Airport in the northeastern suburbs. Another, the Olympic Branch Line, services the main Games' venues in the city's northern areas. Line 10 runs northwest to southeast in the shape of a right angle.

To ensure a safe Games, Beijing has asked subway passengers to go through security checks by machines, police or dogs at all subway stations through Sept. 20.

Guns, ammunition, controlled knives, inflammables, explosives and radioactive and poisonous articles will be the focus of the checks.

(Xinhua News Agency July 22, 2008)