Power and water supplies were returning to normal for people living in the quake zones in southwest China's Sichuan Province, power company and government officials said on Thursday.

About 1.71 million households in Sichuan, or 88.4 percent of those that experienced power cuts after the May 12 earthquake, had regained access to power as of Wednesday afternoon, a spokesman of the Sichuan Electric Power Corporation said.

Yingxiu, one of the worst-hit towns, got electricity back at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, nine days after the earthquake. More than 100 workers were sent to repair the grid and reinstall street lamps.

Water supply has also resumed in all the county seats affected in the earthquake, except the seats of Wenchuan and Beichuan counties, since water plants there were devastated, said Hou Xiongfei, director of the information office of the Sichuan provincial government.

(Xinhua News Agency May 22, 2008)