Telecom services in most of the worst-hit counties and towns in Sichuan province resumed operation yesterday but networks in many villages remained paralyzed due to bad weather and road blockages.

Telecom networks in all the seven worst-hit county seats including Wenchuan, the epicenter, resumed operation as engineers managed to reconnect optical-fiber cables and set up temporary base stations, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MII) said.

Two-thirds of the affected towns in the region have also regained contact with the outside world.

"Telecom services in the rest of the towns are expected to be restored in the next few days and we are going to start working on repairing the disrupted networks in remote villages," Xi Guohua, vice-minister of MII, said.

According to Xi, more than 14,000 companies in Sichuan province were impacted by the powerful earthquake, with direct losses hitting 67 billion yuan.

Telecommunications in seven counties including Wenchuan, Maoxian and Beichuan were totally cut off after the earthquake while telecom services in 109 of the 151 towns in the counties were also paralyzed.

Engineers and telecom equipment were dispatched soon after but the repair process has been greatly hindered by cut-off roads, powerful aftershocks, landslides and torrential rain.

A 36-year-old China Mobile engineer was killed in Lixian by landslides when he was trying to restore fiber-optic cables that had been repaired but cut off again by aftershocks.

Xi said most of the rescue work had to rely on mobile satellite phones, many of which were donated or provided by institutions such as International Telecom Union, Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom and China Transportation and Telecommunication Center.

Xi said it would take a long time before all the telecom networks in the region are rebuilt.

(China Daily May 20, 2008)