Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin （郝龍斌） gave the public his guarantee on Tuesday that it is safe to use the Maokong Gondola despite the new system having sustained a mechanical failure after hit by lightning the previous day.

Hau gave assurances after presiding over a city administrative meeting. He said the lightning, triggered by a summer thunderstorm, destroyed two control circuit boards, leading to a breakdown of the tourism-oriented skyrail system, which only began operation six days ago.

The transportation system, which connects the Taipei City Zoo and the Mucha tea-growing Maokong district tourist attractions, broke down at 1:45 p.m., and did not resume operations until 7:00 p.m., according to the gondolas operator, the Taipei Rapid Transit Corp.

It took TRTC engineers more than five hours to repair the system.

Its the first time that the gondola activated its "rescue mode" soon after it was struck by lightning to transport passengers to a nearby station using back-up power. As a result, no passengers were trapped in cabins during the incident, TRTC officials said.