China Mobile president Wang Jianzhou has pledged to quickly provide full communication services at every temporary settlement set up for victims of the devastating May 12 earthquake centered in Sichuan Province.

Wang told at a press conference today that China Mobile would provide all relocation sites with network services and customer service centers before the end of next month.

“By the end of June at the latest, we will establish communication services for all temporary settlements, including network services and regular, simple service centers.”

China Mobile’s president also announced that as of May 21 China Mobile had made cash donations of RMB 86.2 million, and had provided materials worth RMB 200 million for the rescue and relief effort. These include 5,000 tents and more than 6,500 large umbrellas.

A government list of central SOEs’ donation to earthquake relief shows China Mobile has been the most generous.

“It’s hard to tell when everything would get back to normal, it depends on the reconstruction plans,” said Wang. “Take Beichuan for example, the site of its reconstruction is still unknown, but China Mobile will cooperate with local governments, and provide normal communication services before the end of June.”

All telecom cables have been at least temporarily restored with some being laid by the roadside where an aftershock or landslide might cut them again. Raising the lines on poles or burying them is going to be a huge project, said Wang.

Wang returned on May 20 to Beijing from the disaster area where he helped supervise the work of China Mobile’s partners that had been recruited to make the emergency repairs.

He thanked China Satcom for its speedy response in sharing maritime satellite telephones, which were deployed in Pingwu County by China Mobile staff on May 13.

“My special thanks also goes to the companies, partners and engineering enterprises that offered their support to our relief work,” Wang said.

“We had 22 teams building satellite base stations. China Satcom deployed staff for each team within one day,” said Wang.

The quake left 4,457 base stations out of service in the provinces of Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi and in Chongqing Municipality, and severed 866.5 kilometres of cable in Sichuan.

Five employees of China Mobile’s Beichuan Sub-branch are still missing, including a woman who was seven months pregnant.

China Mobile lineman Liu Jianqiu was killed by landslide while laying new cable in the quake zone on May 16. His family will receive the compensation of highest standard, said Tian Limin, vice secretary of China Mobile Labour Union. China Mobile has conferred top honours on Liu and has applied to have him awarded the title of “martyr”.

Meanwhile, China Mobile has managed to contact more than 10,000 subscribers whose phones went “silent” after the earthquake.

In the first five days after the quake, the Sichuan Branch of China Mobile detected more than 50,000 “silent” phones after they failed to receive a text message or answer a call. The subscribers were in Chengdu, Deyang and Guangyuan.

From May 12 to 16, China Mobile continued to send messages and attempted to call the silent phones every day. More than 10,000 people eventually responded to the calls or text messages.

By May 22, China Mobile’s “I am safe” message service had received 22,000 inquiries and had contacted the families of 18,097 users in the affected regions. Since the earthquake, China Mobile’s “10086 Love Hotline” has received 331,000 calls from people seeking information about the earthquake and made calls and sent messages to 68,000 users in the worst-hit areas.

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