Preliminary estimates showed the May 12 earthquake that jolted southwest China had caused a loss of 6.72 billion yuan (960 million U.S. dollars) to the country's communication industry, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said Friday.

The loss mainly came from infrastructure damage, Shen Yongtao, a ministry official told Xinhua Friday.

A total of 3,897 telecom outlets in the quake zone had reported losses. The devastating quake had paralyzed 28,714 mobile communication base stations, pulled apart cables with a length of 28,765 kilometers and pushed over 142,078 telegraph poles.

Six companies suffered losses including China Telecom, China Mobile,China Netcom, China Unicom, China Satcom and China Tietong, said Shen.

By 3 p.m. Thursday, eight employees of local telecom companies in the quake-stricken Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces had been confirmed dead, with 69 injured and 34 missing.

The call volumes following the quake were 10 times the normal level in Sichuan and once caused congestion in the network, said Zhao Zhiguo, vice-director of the telecommunications department with the ministry.

The ministry urged telecom companies to beef up to ensure communications in and out of the quake zones while calling on users to make short calls to spare room for disaster relief.

Zhao said the repair work was very dangerous and hard, accompanied by aftershocks, landslides and adverse weather. Liu Jianqiu, a 36-year-old worker was killed by sliding rocks during a May 16 aftershock while he was repairing cables.

By Friday, the communication industry has sent a total of 32,000 repair workers to the quake zones. More than 26,000 of them are still working in the scenes.

In addition, large amount of equipments were deployed to expedite the recovery work, including 133 emergency communication vehicles, 1,879 sets of satellite phones and 8,073 power generation machines.

Communication have been resumed in all the 109 towns in the eight hardest-hit counties in Sichuan, said Zhao.

Quake areas in Shaanxi and Gansu also restored communications, the National Development and Reform Commission said Thursday.

Zhao said the telecom departments would continue working to ensure timely and smooth communication for people in the quake zone, especially for rescue troops, workers draining "quake lakes", disease prevention teams and evacuation organizers.

He also said experts would be sent to assess the geological condition and guide the reconstruction of telecom facilities to avoid seismic belts or other disaster-prone areas.

(Xinhua News Agency May 30, 2008)