Carrying a satellite phone over his shoulder, China Mobile technician Xu Zhiyuan, waded across a river, staggered through aftershocks and dodged landslides to reach the blacked-out Qingping village, deep in the mountainous interior of Sichuan Province.

Qingping had been cut off from the world for 102 hours after the May 12th earthquake knocked out communications, transportation, electricity and water.

After an eight-hour trek, Xu, along with a rescue team, finally reached Qingping on the evening of May 16th. He placed a call on his satellite phone to disaster relief headquarters just before 9 p.m., sending out an SOS on behalf of the mining and lumber village of 20,000 people.

While communications have been restored to every community in Sichuan at the county level and above, cell phone coverage remains patchy in some areas.

More than 4,700 China Mobile personnel are working in the disaster areas helping to restore lifesaving communication links. Some 300 experts, technicians and construct workers from China Mobile offices in other provinces have been sent to Sichuan. Another 800 China Mobile workers from outside Sichuan have been mobilized and are awaiting orders to enter the disaster area.

Some 4,500 cell phone base stations were knocked out of service by the 8.0-magnitude earthquake, affecting mobile communications in parts of Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces.

Relative News