(TibetanReview.net, Aug15’25) – While it is still not clear how many Tibetans affected by the devastating 7.1-magnitude earthquake, which hit Tibet’s Mt Everest county of Dingri, Shigatse City, on Jan 7 need to be rehoused, China’s official Xinhua news agency said Aug 15 that more than 12,000 had moved into newly-built homes on Aug 15.
The 2,578 households are the first batch to move into new homes, the report said.
Most of the homes were rebuilt on their original sites, but exceptions were made for houses located along the earthquake belt or in areas vulnerable to landslides or floods, which have been relocated, Pang Jian, head of the Shigatse housing and urban-rural development bureau, has said.
Pang has said the new houses are designed to withstand earthquakes of up to intensity 8.0 on the seismic scale.
The new houses range from 35 to 260 square metres, allocated to households according to family size, Zhuang Yinong, a manager at Shanghai Construction Group in charge of the reconstruction of the village, has said.
The report did not name the village, or how many villages the 2,578 households belong to. However, Xinhua earlier report Feb 1 that some 7,733 makeshift houses and 9,941 tents had been built for a total of 47,787 affected Tibetans by Jan 31.
According to the reconstruction plan, an additional 8,300 residents of 1,145 families are set to move into their new homes by Aug 20. All the remaining residents will move into new homes by the end of October, ensuring safe and warm housing ahead of winter, the Aug 15 report added.
While China put the number of casualties from that earthquake at 126, with more than 27,200 buildings damaged and 3,612 homes collapsed, independent reports said up to more than 400 had died.
Tight censorship on information and denial of access to affected areas and victims even to rescue volunteers and donors mean that the full scale of the earthquake’s devastation and casualty remains unknown to the outside world.