According to China's Ministry of Information Industry, the May 12 earthquake has caused a direct economic loss of up to CNY3 billion to China's communications industry with 3833 telecommunications bureaus and 25735 mobile base stations affected, 24496 kilometers of communications lines damaged and 117112 communications poles broken.

By 06:00, May 21, the communications industry had sent a total of 30700 repairmen to the earthquake areas in Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi, deployed 383 emergency communications vehicles, 8965 power generation machines and more than 3000 sets of other emergency communications equipment in addition to 810 million short messages on emergency guidance.

Thanks to the efforts of the communications sector, eight counties of Wenchuan, Lixian, Maoxian, Qingchuan, Pingwu, Heishui, Beichuan and Mianzhu, which were most severely hit by the earthquake, could communicate with the outside and other counties in the earthquake areas of Gansu and Shaanxi could also maintain smooth communications.

In addition, various means have been taken to recover the communications of earthquake affected townships. By 22:00, May 20, 64 of the 109 towns in the eight main disaster counties in Sichuan resumed communications. The 94 towns in Gansu which were affected by the earthquake also resumed communications by May 18.