Nanfang Nonferrous Metals expects to restart zinc production at its 10,000 tonne-a-year smelter in Deyang city in China's Sichuan province within a week, a plant source said on Tuesday.

Nanfang's zinc production facilities had not been damaged, but had been shut on lack of power supplies after the May 12 earthquake, the source at the firm's trading department told Reuters from Deyang.

The trading manager said the smelter would be able to resume full production in June.

The quake has killed 34,000 and the official death toll is expected to rise.

The smelter is located in Deyang city, which is around 50 km from the epicentre of the earthquake in Sichuan province, and is also the home of Sichuan Hongda Co's 100,000 tonne-a-year zinc operations, which stopped production after the quake.

In a statement on Tuesday, Hongda said 74 workers had died in the tremors and damage to its zinc and chemical operations would cost 387.7 million yuan . The statement did not say when zinc operations would resume.

Hanzhong Bayi Zinc Industry had restarted more than 80 percent at its 120,000 tonnes-a-year smelter, said a trading manager at the plant in southern Shaanxi, about 400 km from Sichuan's capital city of Chengdu.

The firm shut 70 percent of capacity at the smelter after the quake on safety concerns and reduced power supplies.