After severe flood damage in the past week, Russia's Trans-Siberian Railway is still feeling the effect of delays and cancellations along its more than 9,000-kilometre length.
It will take about 10 days before all trains on the world's longest continuous railway line can run on schedule again, the Interfax agency quoted the general director of Russian Railways, Oleg Beloserov, as saying on Wednesday.
The flooding led to the collapse of several bridges at various points on the train line in Russia's Far East.
Train traffic was for a time completely suspended in the affected sectors, though it has subsequently restarted.
The full resumption of operations is important for the Russian economy, said President Vladimir Putin, who attended the inauguration of a railway tunnel through Siberia's Baikal Mountains by video link on Wednesday.
Wild fires
The heavy rain has also flooded hundreds of homes in the east of Russia, and emergency shelters have been set up for flood victims.
Paradoxically, while some regions of Russia have been flooded multiple times already this summer, large swaths of the Siberian wilderness have been battling vast wild fires.
