COPENHAGEN: A temporarily halt of security checks caused a huge backlog for delegates returning from a one-day break to start of the second week of the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen.

More than 10,000 people were waiting to enter the convention center in two lines stretching about 1 kilometer in the early hours yesterday morning.

Chen Ying, deputy director of the Sustainable Development Research Center under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said she and her colleagues had still failed to enter the conference by 9 am local time despite waiting since 7 am.