THOUSANDS OF Chinese rescue workers and cadres, soldiers and ordinary citizens bowed their heads to pay tribute yesterday to the 2,064 victims of last week’s devastating earthquake in the Tibetan region of Yushu.
Red Chinese flags flew at half-mast around the country, and car horns and emergency vehicle sirens were sounded following three minutes of silence at 10am. No entertainment shows were broadcast on television, and newspapers were stripped of colour for the day of mourning.
The 7.1-magnitude quake – the first of a series of tremors which devastated the largely Tibetan community of Yushu – struck at 7.49am last Wednesday.
In Gyegu, Yushu County, where many of the quake survivors are being housed in temporary shelter, about 80 children from a local orphanage were among mourners at a racecourse there, the Xinhua news agency reported.
A banner with white Chinese characters hung in the town hall square reading: “In memory of our compatriots killed in the Yushu earthquake.” The state broadcaster ran footage of the ceremony, which was held on a hill with rubble from destroyed buildings in the background.
More than 60 Tibetan Buddhist monks who came from Sichuan Province performed sutra chants, but did not feature prominently in the televised mourning.
“We pray for the dead and bless the living,” one 27-year-old monk, Urgyen Tenzin, told Xinhua. He had arrived in Yushu to chant sutras for the dead at a mass funeral on Saturday. Rescuers say 175 people are still missing, while 12,000 have been injured and 100,000 left homeless.
Monks have played a major role in the rescue work, as well as carrying out religious rites, but their efforts have been played down in the state media because many Tibetan monks are loyal to their exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, whom Beijing accuses of seeking Tibetan independence.
The red flag was at half-mast on Tiananmen Square too, while President Hu Jintao led his Politburo colleagues in a silent tribute “to express our profound condolences”. Traders in Hong Kong briefly stopped working as a mark of respect.
Communist Party secretary in Qinghai, Qiang Wei, said it was time to look to the future now.
“The earthquake showed no mercy, but we have love. Let us wipe our tears off . . . and strive to meet a brighter tomorrow and let a more beautiful, wealthy and socialist Yushu stand on the vast Tibetan Plateau.”