According to preliminary statistics from China's Ministry of Information Industry, the blizzard in southern China prior to this year's Lunar New Year has caused a total loss of up to CNY1.1 billion to the country's communications industry.
Before February 4, when southern China suffered the most from the blizzard, the communications service of about 6500 base stations in a dozen of provinces including Guizhou, Hunan, Jiangxi, Anhui, Hubei, Guangxi, Sichuan and Zhejiang had been disrupted, 100,000 communications poles fell down and about 23,000 kilometers of communications lines were destroyed, affecting about 39.53 million users.
During the snow disaster, up to 800,000 communications staff were sent to repair the destroyed communication facilities, about 330,000 vehicles were deployed for emergencies, about 300,000 emergency communications equipment were put into use and about 1.3 billion public welfare themed short messages were sent out to users' mobile phones.
MII asked communications service providers to provide uninterrupted service for the snow-affected areas and ensure that all users in the areas can enjoy the communications service. At present, the communications facilities that had been damaged by heavy snow are mostly operational.
