Society

Quake-hit Tibetan monasteries to be restored

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-04-17 16:57

GYEGU, Qinghai - Construction workers will in this year finish rebuilding 62 Tibetan monasteries damaged in last year's 7.1-magnitude earthquake that leveled the plateau county of Yushu in Northwest China, a local government official said Sunday.

Main structures of the other 25 monasteries will also be completed by the end of 2011, as the reconstruction is in full swing, said Wang Yuhu, head of the prefecture government of Yushu, Qinghai province.

The government has earmarked 1 billion yuan ($153.8 million) for monastery restoration after the devastating earthquake that struck Yushu on April 14, 2010, killing nearly 2,700 people in the predominantly Tibetan region with a population of 350,000.

Eighty-seven monasteries were damaged, ten of which were reduced to rubble.

Reconstruction of the worst-hit Trangu monastery started Sunday on a vast grassland, kilometers away from the original site of the 700-year-old famed monastery.

The monastery housed 3,000 Buddha busts and tens of thousands of Buddhism scripts. A significant number of the relics have been rescued from the ruins of the monastery's two main halls.

Construction crews here normally avoid working during the months-long winter as extreme frigid and windy weather on the plateau renders any outdoor engineering project impossible.

Trangu is one of the three most important monasteries in Yushu. The other two - Gyegu Monastery and Renyak Monastery - were also severely damaged in the quake.