Blackout in Turkey Tunnel Just Day after Opening

Rail passengers using Turkey's new tunnel under the Bosphorus had to walk part of their journey Wednesday when an electricity failure briefly halted services, just a day after its grand opening.

The 13.6-kilometre (8.5 mile) undersea tunnel in Istanbul -- the world's first linking two continents -- was inaugurated with great fanfare on Tuesday as the government's "project of the century".

But a power cut forced passengers to leave the train and walk on the tracks, the Dogan news agency said, before the problem was fixed and services resumed within a few minutes.

The tunnel, the fulfilment of a sultan's dream of 150 years ago, is part of a three-billion euro ($4 billion) transport project in Turkey's biggest city.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a former mayor of Istanbul, revived the tunnel plan in 2004 as one of his mega projects for the bustling city of 16 million people -- which also include a third airport, a third bridge across the Bosphorus and a canal parallel to the international waterway to ease traffic.

But his grand urban plans were one cause of the massive anti-government protests that swept the country in June, with local residents complaining they were forcing people from their homes and destroying green space.

Transport is a major problem in Istanbul, and each day two million people cross the Bosphorus via two usually jammed bridges.