International Campaign for Tibet

Beyond the Headlines: The Earthquake in Tibet

On a remote hillside, a Tibetan woman mourns for her mother as flames consume hundreds of bodies in a mass cremation of the dead after a devastating earthquake that hit a Tibetan area of China last Wednesday. A cameraman from the state media who is shooting footage of the grief-stricken Tibetans, with the chanting of hundreds of monks in the background, clearly doesn't know that the Tibetan woman he is filming is praying to the Dalai Lama.

It is a moving reminder of the often hidden, but agonizing separation of the Tibetan people from their exiled leader, but also of the devotion to him and strong Tibetan identity that endures in his absence.

The death toll from the earthquake that hit a Tibetan area of China last Wednesday is rising daily, and the official count is now more than 2,180, although Tibetans in the area say it is far more. The images of hundreds of maroon-robed monks digging in rubble with their bare hands, disposing of corpses or praying for the dead, focused attention on the crisis as a Tibetan one, in contrast to the headlines worldwide of an earthquake in "western China."

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(This article appears in its entirety at The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kate-saunders/beyond-the-headlines-the_b_5...)