Nearly 4,000 people have been stranded on four trains since early Tuesday as a result of strong winds and sandstorms in the southern part of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Four inbound and outbound trains were forced to take shelter from the elements in stations waiting for conditions to improve, said a staff member at the Urumqi south railway station.

The region's weather department said that strong winds and sandstorms swept Bayinggokin Mogol Autonomous Prefecture and Hotan in south Xinjiang, pushing temperatures down to 23 degrees Celsius from Monday's 40 degrees Celsius.

About 1,800 passengers are on the No. 5808 train from Aksu to Urumqi, which has been waiting at the Yu'ergou Station since about 4:00 a.m. They have obtained water but still lack vegetable supplies, said the train conductor Li Qi.

Li told Xinhua that train staffers managed to get drinking water at the station, abutting the Turpan Basin, about 200 km from the regional capital of Urumqi.

The area is well known for strong winds and is near a wind farm.

"We can feel the gales aboard, and the wind detector showed that the wind was measured at force 14, as powerful as a hurricane," said Li, adding that it was impossible for a train to run.

Jin Lei, a passenger on the train, said that they had waited for more than 10 hours and some already missed their next trains or flights.

"We are so worried about the wind conditions," said Lin.

Like the Aksu-Urumqi train, the No. 2661 Lanzhou-Kashi train, the No.887 Kashi-Urumqi train and No. 1046 Korla-Urumqi train were all stranded at the Yu'ergou station as of 6:30 p.m.

Strong winds have been a problem for trains in the region before. Three passengers were killed and more than 30 injured after their train was derailed by hurricane-force winds on Feb. 28, 2007, on a route similar to that of train No. 5808.

In 2003, the Ministry of Railways and the Urumqi Railway Bureau built a 3-meter-high wall along the main rail line to protect trains from strong winds. The project cost 1.3 billion yuan (about 168 million U.S. dollars).

(Xinhua News Agency August 6, 2008)