Panda center out of contact after earthquake

China Wolong Giant Panda Protection and Research Center in the worst quake-hit area of southwest China was out of contact, said the State Forestry Administration (SFA) on Monday.

All communication services linking the center with the outside were cut after a major earthquake hit the western part of Wenchuan County, Sichuan Province, an SFA official told Xinhua.

The forestry department of Sichuan provincial government also had no information from the center, he said.

About 130 giant pandas are living in the center and another 150 wild pandas on the Wolong reserve.

The quake, measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, jolted Wenchuan County at 2:28 p.m. on Monday. Tremors were felt over much of China.

Earthquake in Sichuan triggers tremor in Beijing, not separate one

The China Earthquake Networks Center said at its website that the tremor in Beijing was actually triggered by the quake wave from Sichuan Province in southwest China and not a separate earthquake.

A major earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale rocked Wenchuan County in southwest China's Sichuan Province at 2:28 p.m. Monday.

Earlier reports said a minor quake measuring 3.9 on the Richter scale jolted the Tongzhou District in eastern Beijing at 2:35 p.m.

The tremor in Beijing shook high-rise buildings and sent panicked people into streets. 

At least 15 dead near epicenter of Sichuan earthquake

At least 15 people were killed in a county near the epicenter of a 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck southwest China on Monday, local government said.

Meanwhile, 160 people were injured, 36 severely, in Wenchuan County, Tibetan-Qiang Autonomous Prefecture of Aba, Sichuan Province, the prefectural government said in a statement posted on its official website.

Quake paralyzes phone networks in SW China

Monday's strong earthquake cut telephone links to southwest China, say network operators.

Cell phone services were cut in Wenchuan County of Tibetan-Qiang Autonomous Prefecture of Aba, Sichuan Province, where the epicenter was located, said a statement from the China Unicom, one of China's largest mobile service providers, on Monday evening.

As the company was unable to reach its local branch in Wenchuan by 7 p.m., technicians and a vehicle equipped with satellite communication facilities had been sent to the county, the statement said.

About 200 China Unicom base stations were out of action in Aba as well as 500 in neighboring Shaanxi Province while a fibre-optic cable between Shaanxi capital Xi'an and Sichuan capital Chengdu was severed, it said.

Four counties in Gansu, another neighboring province, were also disconnected, it added.

Meanwhile, six counties in Sichuan, including four in Aba, and one in Gansu Province were unable to be reached through fixed telephone lines because the quake broke fibre-optic cables, according to China Telecom.

The company has sent two contingency vehicles with 15 maritime satellite phones to Wenchuan, the company told CCTV Monday evening.

China Telecom staff were monitoring and controlling the number of phone calls in and out of the quake-hit regions to avoid congestion in the network and ensure communications for disaster relief, it said.

Mobile service operator China Mobile's branch in Sichuan said about 2,300 local base stations stopped operating due to power shutdowns and transmission failures caused by the quake and three switching stations were overloaded.

China Mobile has started repairing affected facilities, the office said.

Besides power disruptions and a surge in call volumes following the quake could have also slowed the cell phone network, they said. Call volumes were 10 times the normal level and the percentage of connections fell by half, China Mobile said.

The ministry of industry and information called on users to talk on phone as shortly as possible to spare room for disaster relief.

The quake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale jolted Wenchuan County of Sichuan Province at 2:28 p.m. on Monday. Tremors were felt in a large part of the country.