Tibet earthquake a warning by nature to China, says Sikyong Penpa Tsering

Penpa Tsering, who attended the special prayer service in solidarity with the earthquake victims, said that the Chinese government should be mindful about the impacts of the mega projects in Tibet, particularly the one they announced last month; building a mega dam on Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra) river at the location where the river takes a U-turn to come into India

A day after a strong earthquake levelled thousands of houses and killed over 100 people in Tibet, Sikyong (president) of Tibetan government-in-exile Penpa Tsering on Wednesday said that the earthquake is a warning by nature to the Chinese government that they should be very mindful of environmental impact assessment when they do mega projects in Tibet.

On Wednesday, the Tibetan residents and sympathisers in Dharamshala gathered at the Tsuglakhang temple to observe a prayer service to express their support and solidarity for the tragic loss of over a hundred lives and the many others who were injured in Tibet due to the earthquake on Tuesday. (HT Photo)

Penpa Tsering, who attended the special prayer service in solidarity with the earthquake victims, said that the Chinese government should be mindful about the impacts of the mega projects in Tibet, particularly the one they announced last month; building a mega dam on Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra) river at the location where the river takes a U-turn to come into India.

“This mega dam is supposed to produce three times the hydroelectricity that the biggest dam, that is also in China, of the world, produces. You can imagine that this whole Tibetan plateau came out of the tectonic shift in the Indian plate and the Eurasian plate and the whole region is a seismic zone. So if anything happens to this dam, which China is planning to build, it could be very catastrophic for the downstream states,” he said.

On Wednesday, the Tibetan residents and sympathisers in Dharamshala gathered at the Tsuglakhang temple to observe a prayer service to express their support and solidarity for the tragic loss of over a hundred lives and the many others who were injured in Tibet due to the earthquake on Tuesday.

Sikyong said that they are organising the special prayer because of the disaster that happened in Tibet on January 7. “We do have some contact with the people in Tibet because the earthquake happened quite close to Nepal and many of the relatives also live in Nepal. So, there has been some communications and there are also some social media posts. We can also see that the locals from all provinces of Tibet are also coming together to supply necessary items for the people affected,” he said.