Tibetans cremated their dead on Saturday after a massive earthquake struck a remote part of China earlier in the week, killing more than 1 000 people and leaving thousands huddled in the cold in makeshift tents.
The official Xinhua news agency said the death toll had reached 1 144 with 417 missing, following a 6,9 magnitude quake that struck Wednesday in Yushu county in western Qinghai province, high on the Tibetan plateau.
More than 1 000 people were seriously injured, though almost all have now been taken out to larger cities for treatment, a government spokesperson said in Beijing.
Others remain buried beneath crumpled buildings, and at least 200 rescuers have had to be evacuated after suffering from altitude sickness in an area 4 000 metres above sea level, Xinhua said.
Residents and rescue teams, including Tibetan Buddhist monks, picked through the wreckage of collapsed homes, looking for the dead and possible survivors, as well as bits and pieces to make life living in tents or in the cold outdoors a little easier.
“Our first problem is that there aren’t enough tents, and too many of the ones that are arriving are going to people with influence,” said Dongzhu, an ethnic Tibetan who was scouring the remnants of his collapsed home for anything usable.
“There’s absolutely no way that the families around here could afford to pay for new homes themselves, and after this we will want quake-resistant homes,” said the retired local official in his sixties.
China’s leaders have made a point of demonstrating personal sympathy for the victims, perhaps sensitive to potential flare-ups in this area, high on the Tibetan plateau next to the official Tibet Autonomous Region, a restive part of the country.
Cremation ceremony
Shortly after dawn on Saturday, Buddhist monks lifted hundreds of bodies into trunks, vans and cars to take them for cremation in the foothills of the town. The bodies had been assembled on a platform at the main Gyegu Monastery.
“We must have a funeral for them in three days. That’s our tradition”, said Laojiang, a Tibetan Buddhist monk who had travelled to Yushu to help with quake relief.
His hands were covered in bloody bandages from digging through rubble, hunting for survivors.
“We are all Tibetans, we are all the same people,” he said. “I feed very sad, but I also feel we have shown our best spirit.”
The ceremony began with a mix of tenderness and practicality. The wrapped bodies lay in the back of dozens of trucks like bundles of used bedding, as monks and residents prayed.
“This prayer is wishing that they have a good reincarnation and that their suffering is over,” said Gansong Getai, a local official who had volunteered to drive one of the funeral trucks.
When the convoy arrived on a grassy hill above town, monks placed the bodies on platforms above two trenches dug into the hillside, filled with burning wood and tyres for the cremation.
About 500 monks gathered on the hillside praying. The heat from the flames could be felt over a hundred metres away.
Vultures gather
Many bystanders were in tears. Ginga Nima said he did not know if any of his missing kin were among the corpses.
“It’s best that it’s done this way,” he said. “This way it’s a proper Buddhist funeral and we know the monks will take care.”
The monks removed the clothes from the bodies as they lowered them on to the bars above the trenches.
Vultures circled the smoke rising from the cremation site, as monks prepared a far smaller number of bodies for a traditional Tibetan “sky burial” — when bodies are fed to the birds.
Zhaxi, an ethnic Tibetan said one of the dead fed to the vultures was his uncle, Suona, who was crushed in his home in the quake. Zhaxi said the family had paid for the ceremony.
“If you can do it, a sky burial is the best way, the most pure way,” he said. “This is what our tradition expects.”
At the cremation site, hundreds of monks piled the bier high with bodies and wood. Residents also gathered there, including groups of woman, hands clasped in intense prayer.
Police were on hand, but left handling the crowds and the bodies to the monks in their crimson robes.
Bairi Cele, an ethnic Tibetan businessman, said he felt proud that the monks had played such a big role in the relief effort.
“I also feel that today there is unity among Tibetans. When the earthquake first hit, the government was still paralysed. But the monks from the Gyegu monastery came out straight away to look for people who were buried.” – Reuters