China's railways authorities confirmed late Monday that a power failure had delayed over 20 trains along the new high-speed line between Beijing and Shanghai on Monday afternoon.

The malfunction of power facilities, which occurred 5:30 p.m. on a section near Dingyuan County in the eastern province of Anhui, had brought more than 20 trains to a three-hour standstill before they started moving again at 8:35 p.m., a spokesman with the Shanghai Bureau of Railway told Xinhua.

The news of the delay was first circulated on the Internet as some passengers of the delayed trains reported the situation, using microblogging sites such as weibo.com, after the power outage.

Public transportation departments in Shanghai have arranged extra buses and subways to serve the passengers who are expected to arrive late.

In north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, about 3,800 passengers have been stranded on five stalled trains since 19:30 p.m. Monday in the Jining-Tongliao Railway, after a bridge was destroyed by rain-triggered floods, according to the railway bureau of Hohhot, capital city of Inner Mongolia.

The stranded passengers have been supplied with food and water as the repair work is underway, said the bureau.