(TibetanReview.net, Mar15’25) – In yet further details about the earthquake which devastated Dingri and several other counties in Tibet on Jan 7 morning, China has said Mar 14 that tens of thousands of households in hundreds of villages needed reconstruction, including close to 50 villages requiring complete rebuilding.
China tightly restricted access, including even to relief and humanitarian aid providers, and censored information, so that the full scale of the destruction and gravity of the humanitarian disaster continues to remain unknown.
More details have been emerging from the Chinese media only recently in reports on the reconstruction efforts. On Mar 5, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported for the first time that 120,000 people had been displaced by the earthquake, adding it destroyed to varying degrees 79 schools, including three completely,
Before that, China said that as of Jan 13, noon, a total of 126 people had died, 407 had been rescued, over 47,500 relocated, and over 27,200 houses damaged, of which 3,612 had collapsed.
And now, China’s official chinadaily.com.cn reported Mar 14, citing Xizang Daily, that over 21,400 households in 681 villages were in need of reconstruction, with 47 villages requiring complete rebuilding. The previously reported larger number of damaged houses apparently included other buildings as well.
Referring to the enormity of the reconstruction effort, the report said the regional department of housing and urban-rural development had deployed nearly 1,000 professionals from seven survey and design units around the country, including the Design Institute of Tongji University and the China Southwest Geotechnical Investigation & Design Institute, to expedite site selection, planning and design work.