Washington's 'panda cam' back on after shutdown

The pictures flickered briefly at 9.59am, the images showing two furry black-and-white blobs snoozing, as usual. Four minutes later, the feeds from the giant panda compound at the US National Zoo stopped.

For about 30 minutes on Thursday, the two panda cams were dark. Zoo officials said it was just a communications problem.

Anguished moments ticked by as hundreds of people waited.

Then, at 10.36am, the video resumed, showing the zoo's celebrated and unnamed eight-week-old cub in fine fettle - fat and round, and looking like a gift-shop souvenir.

Of all the resumptions on Thursday in rebooted Washington, that of the panda cams - which show a live feed of Mei Xiang and her cub - was perhaps the most eagerly awaited.

Within 10 minutes, the cameras were rushed by the panda-starved masses, the zoo said, and connections were being intermittently rejected.

From then on, repetitive mouse-clicking was required to grab one of the 850 viewing slots each camera can handle at a time, and then only for 15 minutes of oohing and aahing.