The Ministry of Environmental Protection on Wednesday ordered the high-speed?railway connecting Tianjin and Qinhuangdao, Hebei province, to stop.

The construction project, which is called Jin-Qin Passenger Railway, will not be allowed to continue before its environmental re-evaluation is approved by the authority.

The railway company had not applied for an environmental re-evaluation after it changed some of the construction sites, according to the environment watchdog.

The Jin-Qin Passenger Railway line covers 261 kilometere with with an average speed of 350km per hour. It can transport 80 million passengers every year. The project is estimated to cost 33.8 billion yuan ($ 5.2 billion), and is partly sponsored by the Ministry of Railways. The project started in November 2008 and will take four years to complete.

Before this, the ministry issued a notice in April asking the Jiaoji passenger railway between Qingdao and Jinan, East China's Shandong province, to stop operation because the line had not yet passed an environmental evaluation, China Daily reported.