Steel mills in southwestern China not affected by quake

BEIJING (Reuters) - Steel mills in central and southern China were largely unaffected by a large quake in Sichuan province, company managers reached by telephone said on Monday.

But some telephone lines to the industrial city of Chongqing were not working and calls to some mills and factories there didn't go through.

The quake hit Wenchuan in a mostly Tibetan area of Aba, northwest of the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu, Xinhua said. It was felt as far away as Taiwan and Thailand's capital Bangkok. Managers at Panzhihua steel, in the southwestern part of the Sichuan province, and at Wuhan Iron and Steel Co, downriver in Hubei province, said they had felt the tremor, which had a reported magnitude of 7.5.

But calls to the Chongqing municipal government, as well as at neighbouring factories and the Chongqing Iron and Steel Group, did not go through.

"We have felt the quake, but it will not impact production at all", a manager in Panzhihua Iron and Steel said.

The giant Three Gorges Dam did not show visible signs of damage, a witness said.

(Reporting by Lucy Hornby and Alfred Cang; editing by Ken Wills)