More than 100,000 people had been left without water for more than one day in a county in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality after lightning damaged a high voltage line, local authorities said Sunday.

A 35-kilovoltage line was damaged by lightning Saturday night in Yunyang County, leaving water pumps in the local water company out of work, according to the publicity department of Yunyang County's Communist Party Committee.

Local residents flooded restaurants as they could not cook in their own houses without water.

Although power supply had been restored, it would still take some time before water came back, said Xu Zhengwei, who is in charge of Yunyang Power Company.

"The thunderstorm has much troubled the maintenance work," he said.

Xu said water supply was expected to be restored early Monday morning if things went well.

(Xinhua News Agency September 21, 2009)