Flooding on Tibet's Drichu River Submerges Monastery in Chamdo/ENG

2018. november 12./RFA/TibetPress

eredeti cikk



Flooding along a stretch of Tibet’s Drichu River has submerged a monastery in Chamdo, ‘devastating’ local residents who had worked hard to protect it from the rising waters, Tibetan sources said.

The Polu monastery in Chamdo’s Jomda district is now mostly under water, with many of the monastery’s religious artifacts now ruined beyond repair, a local source told RFA’s Tibetan Service on Monday.

“We tried our best to protect the monastery from the water by building fences around it, but this did not help,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“We failed to secure the monastery.”

“Now there is nothing we can do, and all that is left is to try to rebuild it, and we are appealing now to everyone to help us do this,” he said.

On Oct. 11 and again on Nov. 3, two landslides on the banks of the Drichu in Jomda’s Polu township dammed the river, causing barrier lakes to form and forcing local Tibetans to flee to higher ground for safety, sources said.

And rising water levels over the last few days have now submerged many two-storey dwellings in Polu township.

China’s state-linked Global Times newspaper reported on Sunday that temporary camps have been set up to shelter villagers displaced by the disaster, which has affected over 30,000 residents in Tibet and downstream in China’s Sichuan province.

Reported by Lobe Socktsang for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Dhondup Gonsar. Written in English by Richard Finney.