YILIANG, Yunnan, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- Mobile phone services in quake-hit areas in southwest China's Yunnan Province have been basically restored, local authorities said Sunday.
Zhao Ning, deputy director of the provincial telecom regulatory bureau, said phone services are almost back to normal following the repair of telecommunications facilities belonging to service providers China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom.
Ma Kui, general manager of the Yunnan branch of China Mobile, said 221 damaged telecom stations have been repaired, adding that the company has arranged for emergency telecom vehicles to bring service to areas where stations have yet to be repaired.
However, volatile weather and the area's rough terrain may result in inconsistent service over the next several days, Ma said.
Power had been restored to about 90 percent of quake-affected residents as of Sunday noon, the China Southern Power Grid Corporation said.
The earthquake left a total of 90,795 people without power, the company said, adding that power has been restored to 80,688 people.
Eighty-one people were killed and 821 injured after multiple earthquakes hit a mountainous area in Yunnan on Sept. 7. No deaths were reported in the neighboring Guizhou Province.
Families of each of the dead will get a death benefit of 20,000 yuan (3,150 U.S. dollars), the rescue headquarters said in a statement Saturday night.
Medium to heavy rains are forecast to lash Yiliang county of Zhaotong city, the epicenter, on Monday and Tuesday, bringing a temperature drop of 10 degrees Celsius in the hard-hit mountainous areas and complicating the rescue and search efforts, the rescue headquarters said.
The rescuers and affected residents should guard against potential rain-triggered landslides, it warned.
More than 7,600 police, military and reserve forces are still racing against time to search damaged buildings to see if there are any survivors.
The quake damaged 7,138 houses, 18 country roads and 11 bridges and forced the evacuation of 175,000 residents in Zhaotong. The quake-hit region has received more than 11,600 tents, 1,000 beds, 10,500 quilts, 54,300 packages of instant noodles and 78 tonnes of rice.
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