(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-05-24 11:08

The whole line of quake-damaged Baoji-Chengdu railway reopened to traffic Saturday after 283 hours of closure, allowing batch transport of disaster relief goods to China's quake-hit Sichuan Province.

No. 977 train carrying urgently needed relief goods of tents and medicines passed through the railway's No. 109 tunnel at 9:53 a.m. Saturday, where a 40-car freight train derailed and was trapped, paralyzing the railway in the May 12 earthquake.

The railway, linking Chengdu, provincial capital of Sichuan, with Baoji city in neighboring Shaanxi Province, is a key north-south route in west China.

The southern section of the railway reopened on Friday after workers finished repairs on a key bridge that was damaged by the 8.0-magnitude earthquake with its epicenter in Wenchuan County, Sichuan.

While, the northern part of the railway remained blocked due to the difficulties in pulling the derailed wagons, which carried gasoline, from the damaged tunnel.

For the past 12 days of quake rescue operation, rescuers and relief goods had been transported into the mountainous quake zone by airlift or through frequently disrupted road links, because of the closure of the damaged railway.

More than 2,200 railway workers, armymen and policemen risked their lives and worked round-the-clock to the emergency repair of the Baoji-Chengdu railway, which was reopened seven days earlier than the repair plan, according to railway officials in charge of the work.

Lu Chunfang, vice minister of railways and commander of the repair operation shed tears at the reopening of the tunnel.

"We stressed the importance of safety work. However, we all knew the work was extremely dangerous," he said.

He said one railway worker died and many others were injured in the repair work.

The repair worker named Huang Junke was killed by a falling mountain rock, which hit his head.

Huang was a 37-year-old worker from the China Railway Electrification Group.

More than 1,600 villagers living near the tunnel were evacuated due to concerns of the dangers of fire and poisonous gas, after the repair was carried out. Heats from the tunnel could be felt 100 meters away, said villagers.

Twelve tanks of gasoline on the derailed train were burnt. Fire in the tunnel section in Huixian County, Gansu Province, had burnt for about 40 hours before it was put out on May 14.

Firefighters used more than 20,000 sandbags and hundreds of wet quilts to cover the north exit and vents of the tunnel, to starve the fire of oxygen, and poured water and foam into the tunnel to prevent the fire from burning.

Workers shoveled out more than 170,000 cubic meters of blockage caused by mountain landslides in the earthquake and aftershocks from the tunnel.