XINING - Traffic on a section of a high-speed rail line linking northwest China's Xinjiang with its neighboring provinces has been halted since Monday morning due to a fault on the line.

Qinghai-Tibet Railway Co. said a "geological disaster" caused a glitch to a section of cable that runs through a tunnel in Haidong city, Qinghai province, at about 6 am, forcing train services to be suspended between Lanzhou, capital of Gansu province, and Xining, capital of Qinghai.

The line connects Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang, and Lanzhou.

The cable is being fixed, the company said, without giving any details on when trains may be back up and running. Most passengers have changed their route to a second line that connects the two cities, it added.

The 1,776-km rail line, which opened in 2014, is China's first high-speed railway built in a high-altitude region.