Chinese Phone Networks Affected by Earthquake

China's strong earthquake this morning is reported to have damaged power supplies to local telecommunications facilities, which affected cell phone services, network operators have said. Staff at China Mobile and China Unicom told the official news agency, Xinhua that mobile phone services in the southwestern Sichuan and northwestern Shaanxi provinces were affected by the earthquake.

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Earthquake location - source USGS

They said that an investigation was under way.

A surge in call volume following the quake could have also slowed the cell phone network, they said.

An earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale jolted Wenchuan County of Sichuan Province at 6:30 am (GMT/UTC time) on Monday morning. Tremors and aftershocks have been felt in a large part of China.

Posted to the site on 12th May 2008