Tibet earthquake: What we know so far
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This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Rescuers in Tibet are searching for earthquake survivors in freezing conditions. The powerful 7.1 magnitude quake hit on Tuesday. Hundreds have been rescued, but at least 126 people have died. And it's not clear how many people are missing. The quake was also felt nearby in Nepal, which is just south of Tibet and in parts of India.

Internet access is restricted in Tibet, which is tightly controlled by Beijing, and reporters can't travel there without government permission. So much of what we know about the quake and its aftermath is from Chinese state media. In this episode, we're going to run through the rescue efforts, tell you about the region of Tibet and why it's difficult to access. I'm Ikra Farouk, and this is What's in the World from the BBC World Service. ♪

I'm joined by Sean Yuen, who is a journalist at the BBC's Global China Unit. Hi, Sean. Hi. So what do we know about the rescue efforts so far? So the earthquake happened on Tuesday morning local time in Tibet. And at the very beginning, the government was saying that it was going to be very difficult to reach the sites of the tremor, of the damage, because it was so remote. But according to the state media, all the roads that have been damaged by tremors had been reopened.

So a lot of rescue equipment and all the rescuers were on their way to the region already. They have rescued over 400 people, but we don't have a figure on exactly how many people are still missing.

The conditions seem horrific. Absolutely. Tibet is one of the harshest places when it comes to climate in China. And for example, last night, the temperature dipped down to minus 18 Celsius, zero degrees Fahrenheit. And a lot of people under the rubbles, even if they were not injured, could get hypothermia from not being able to keep themselves warm and everything. And that's the reason why the rescue effort has been so long grinding and it's been difficult.

How does this quake compare to what we've seen in the area before? Is this more powerful? This is definitely one of the worst earthquakes when it comes to the casualties. But this is not the first one. Tibet sits on a geological fault line where the Indian plate and Eurasian plate grind against each other.

and shift mountain ranges. And that's the reason why, for example, in 2008 in Sichuan, there was a major earthquake. And in 2023, there was a major earthquake in Qinghai, which is a neighboring province that also killed over 100 people. Also, just a few years ago in Nepal, there was a major earthquake that caused the death of over 9,000 people. So this area is definitely...

prone to that kind of disasters. So what is the climate normally like? I'm thinking at this time of year, what's it like? Absolutely cold. I've been to Tibet a couple of times myself, including the area where the earthquake happened in Dingzhi County. And in the wintertime, the temperature, as I said, dropped down to minus 20 sometimes, and it's incredibly cold. It is one of the most impoverished regions in China as well. So a lot of houses were built with dirt.

And they were not built to kind of trap the heat in. So even without the natural disasters, it would have been very difficult to have a normal life and let alone, you know, all these tremors that cause all these damages. So you're part of the Global China Unit, which is helping us understand a bit more what's happening in the area. But it

It's pretty tricky to know exactly what's happening on the ground, right? With the broadcasters, just give us a picture of actual access into the area. Right. So before we talk about access, I think we have to talk about this special status that Tibet enjoys in China. It's called autonomous region access.

of China. So I think we have to go back into the history. Tibet has traditionally and historically been a separate kingdom from China and had periods of independence and varying degrees of association with the country as well. And in 1950, China's People's Liberation Army, which is China's official army, asserted sovereignty over the region. And one year later, they signed an agreement called Seventeen Point Agreement. Basically, that was giving the Tibetan region the name of autonomous region.

What that means is that theoretically, the Tibetan autonomous region has the right to self-govern in matters like local legislation, language, culture, religion, and the use of natural resources and stuff like that.

And the region should be led by officials from the Tibetan ethnic group and, you know, as much autonomy as they can enjoy. But in practice, many have said that and a lot of international journalists have reported that Tibet does not exercise really meaningful autonomy. The central government in Beijing, for example, retains control over critical issues, including all those ones like political matters, security and economic development.

And also at the same time, culture and religion are such important matters in Tibet. So when we talk about Tibetan cultural and religious freedom, especially those associated with Dalai Lama and Pension Lama and Tibetan Buddhism have been significantly restricted, leading to criticism from Tibetan groups and international human rights organizations.

And that has in part contributed to the fact that a lot of international journalists have not been able to go independently into Tibet to do independent reporting. And that's the reason why, for example, BBC has not been able to go there to this epicenter of the earthquake. And that's the reason why all this footage you've been seeing so far has been coming from state media or social media as well. And we as a BBC, for example, cannot really go into Tibet independently to verify those facts. Hmm.

So how are you finding out the facts then? So a lot of them came from social media, for example. I actually talked to a few people who were in the vicinity of the epicenter of the tremor. And they were telling me that, you know, just 20 kilometers away from the epicenter where they're staying, the houses were cracking, the walls were cracking down, and they felt incredibly strong tremors. And also on the other side of the border, Nepal experienced major earthquake a few years ago. And at this time, it feels like a

a horrible deja vu, and a lot of them were describing incredibly strong tremors, and a lot of them fled their houses as well. So we're getting all this basic information from this sort of the parameter of the epicenter area. Yeah, it must be tricky. I wanted to talk a bit about the epicenter of the quake, Shigatse. It's one of the holiest sites in Tibet. Just tell me, why is it so significant? So we talked about Dalai Lama earlier. That's the highest spiritual leader in Tibetan Buddhism. And second to him is Panchen Lama.

And Panchen Lama, the traditional seat of Panchen Lama, is located in Shigatse. And the monastery, for example, was built by Dalai Lama and preserved by the Tibetan local government and the Chinese government as well. And the state media did say that the monasteries remained undamaged.

And so you mentioned the tremors were felt in nearby countries as well, like in Nepal. I just wanted to touch on that a little bit. Yeah, what was the wider impact of this? Tremors are quite common in a region because of the tectonic activities in that area. This region is very prone to natural disasters in general because of the high altitude. The Tibetan Plateau sits around, on average, over 4,000 meters above sea level.

And because of climate change, the glaciers were melting. So you have a lot of glacial lakes being formed by those dams. And because of the earthquakes, there is a strong concern that those dams might be broken. And there's a thing we call glacial lake outburst flood, which means the dam that sort of contained the glacial lake

would be damaged by the earthquakes and all the water would come down. And that has happened before. And we're seeing similar concerns in Nepal as well because there's a huge drop of altitude from Tibet and Plato to Nepal. So far, Nepali authorities say that we have not recorded any casualties or major damages, but there are a lot of things we should be looking out for in the future, in the coming days, to see whether there's any repercussions

residual damages that we could be monitoring. It sounds like there's a lot of different climate events, climate conditions to balance here. And that's tricky for the rescue teams and the government's dealing with this. Well, what are they saying? What are the Chinese government saying to how they're dealing with this? So at the very beginning, we're seeing social media videos where we're seeing rescue workers or even local residents were literally just dugging out

from the rebels with their bare hands because the equipment was not able to be transferred to those remote regions because of just how remote they are. So far, the Chinese government has been, for example, Xi Jinping has called for an all-out effort and they're saying that we're going to

put pretty much all our efforts into rescuing the survivors. On social media, a lot of people are organizing to donate blood or to donate equipment. A lot of them are driving from neighboring provinces like Qinghai or Sichuan to Tibet to contribute to part of the effort as well. So I think the entire nation has been mobilized. And this is not the first time China has experienced earthquakes or natural disasters of this extent. So I think the government now has sort of a mandate in terms of what kind of rescue efforts need to be put in place when disasters like this.

strike. But you do wonder with the level of devastation we're seeing on our timelines and the examples we have in the past, how long is this going to take to recover from? It's really hard to say because, for example, in Shanghai, it took them forever. It took such a long time for them to kind of rebuild everything. And this is going to be the same as well. And the Tianhe County, for example, in the area surrounding the epicenter of the earthquake, there were not many residents, I think about 60,000 residents in that big area.

And then Tingyue County is one of the most populous counties in Tibet. So a lot of them might be migrated to neighboring regions if they deemed those properties were not able to be rebuilt or refurbished or anything. So again, it's hard to say. It's a really impoverished and remote region of Tibet. I keep saying that because I think we really need to take that into consideration in terms of the rescue and reconstruction efforts. Thanks, Sean. Thanks for having me.

Thank you for listening to this episode. If you want updates on this story, you can check out the BBC website for the latest. I'm Ikra Farooq. You've been listening to What In The World from the BBC World Service. See you next time. Yoga is more than just exercise. It's the spiritual practice that millions swear by.

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