China holding 3 days of mourning for quake victims

Phone calls to the state forestry administration and to the forestry bureau in Sichuan province rang unanswered Sunday night. Fixed phone lines to the reserve remained down. Officials have been able to call the reserve only by satellite phone.

Meanwhile, flood threats from rivers blocked by landslides from the quake appeared to have eased after three waterways near the epicenter overflowed with no problems, Xinhua said. County officials diverted released water as a precaution.

The quake damaged some water projects, such as reservoirs and hydroelectric stations, but no reservoirs had burst, Liu Ning, engineer in chief with the Ministry of Water Resources, told Xinhua.

Nuclear facilities jolted by the quake were confirmed safe and troops were sent to reinforce security there, air force Maj. Gen. Ma Jian, deputy chief of operations for the military's General Staff Headquarters, told reporters in Beijing.

China's nuclear safety agency ordered staff to be on standby in case of an environmental emergency following the quake.

The French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety said China reported "light damage" to unspecified nuclear facilities that were being dismantled before the quake.

Thierry Charles, the group's director of plant safety, said Chinese authorities immediately shut down nuclear sites for inspection. He said China's nuclear safety agency, NNSA, had reported no leaks of radioactivity since the quake.

China has a research reactor, two nuclear fuel production sites and two atomic weapons sites in Sichuan province, the French nuclear watchdog has said, all located 40 to 90 miles from the epicenter.

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Associated Press writers Tini Tran in Muyu and William Foreman in Mianyang contributed to this report.