A vehicle for emergency communications is deployed by China Mobile in Moxi Town of Luding County, southwest China's Sichuan Province, Sept. 5, 2022. A 6.8-magnitude earthquake jolted southwest China's Sichuan Province on Monday, leaving at least 21 people dead and more than 30 injured, causing damage to infrastructure facilities, such as the water and electricity supply, transportation and telecommunications. (Photo: Xinhua)

Several photovoltaic (PV) companies said the operation of their local plants has not been impacted after a 6.8-magnitude earthquake jolted Luding County, Southwest China's Sichuan Province on Monday, killing at least 46 people and leaving 16 missing and 50 injured.

The company's production capacity of high-purity crystalline silicon and solar cells in Sichuan is far away from the epicenter of the quake. After preliminary investigation, there were no casualties. The production equipment and production line are safe and controllable, and operate stably without any impact, Chengdu-based listed Tongwei Co said in an announcement on Monday.

China’s solar panel producer GCL Technology Holdings also said the earthquake has not impacted local production in Sichuan with the company running as usual, according to yicai.com.

After on-site investigation, the production of the granular silicon project in Leshan, Sichuan Province was safe and normal, and the operation was not affected by the earthquake, according to news information provider cls.cn on Monday.

Sichuan is one of the main provinces for the production of polysilicon for the photovoltaic industry, as many PV companies including GCL Technology Holdings and Tongwei have plants in the province. 

Tongwei Solar has four bases across China, with three in Sichuan and one in Hefei in East China's Anhui Province, according to its official website. The company says it is the world's leading crystalline silicon solar cell producer. Tongwei realized revenues of 63.49 billion yuan ($9.15 billion) in 2021, up 43.64 percent than the previous year, according to company's fiscal report.

In 2021, China's polysilicon output was about 500,000 tons, accounting for more than 70 percent of global output. Sichuan's polysilicon production accounts for about 13 percent of the national output, second only to Xinjiang and Yunnan, according to yicai.com.

Market watchers said the reason why there are a lot of the photovoltaic companies mapping in Sichuan is mainly due to the cheap power prices given abundant access to hydropower.

Chinese rare-earth producer Shenghe Resources Holding Co said on Monday via its official WeChat account that its factory in Sichuan was not impacted by the earthquake, and their business is running normally. 

In addition, the listed lithium producers including Tianqi Lithium Corporation and Shenzhen Chengxin Lithium Group Co in Sichuan are also reportedly not impacted by the earthquake.

Liquor producers, including Wuliangye, Luzhou Laojiao, and Shuijingfang all said that they felt the earthquake, but there was no clear impact on the operation, according to cls.cn.

The epicenter is about 40 kilometers away from the county seat of Luding, and there are several villages around the epicenter within a 5-kilometer range, with the average elevation reaching about 2,700 meters, according to media reports.

The Sichuan earthquake administration on Monday activated a level-II emergency response, the second-highest in China's four-tier earthquake emergency response system. 

Late on Monday night, Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, where Luding county is located, raised its prefectural emergency response for earthquakes to level-I, the highest in the four-tier emergency response system.

So far, more than 50,000 affected residents have been relocated, according to Sichuan authorities.

Global Times