Fears and tears in holy plateau city wracked by turmoil
Updated: 2008-03-15 22:00
"Blood trickled down her face. She stumbled to the ground, crying and begging the rioters to let her go," he said. "They seemed a bunch of insane people, growling, stabbing, smashing and burning. It was so hard to believe what I saw."
Jin Hong, a clerk with the Bank of China outlet on Lhasas' Beijing East Road, suffered a broken pelvis after jumping from the second-floor of the building while trying to protect a cash box.
"About 60 rioters, all young men and women, attacked the bank with rocks and axes, and later set fire to the building on Friday afternoon.
"I hid in the toilet with three colleagues, but the mobs thronged against the toilet door. I had to jump out of the window, " she said.
Liu Kun, a nurse with the General Hospital of Tibet Military Command, said Jin was in stable condition, but she was due to receive surgery in two days. The hospital was offering free treatment to all riot victims.
Not only the Han Chinese, local Tibetans were also affected by the tumultuous violence.
Rawang, a Tibetan clothes vendor in downtown Lhasa, sighed at the dreary scene, once the site of bustling commerce. "It was once a shopping haven, but now it's all deserted, like a hell."
His shop was burnt to the ground. "Losses were grave. These people were crazy," he said.
Cering Yangzom, a retired Tibetan worker in Lhasa, said he planned to have tea with friends at the weekend, but the atmosphere was too tense for them to go out. "Nobody knew what the troublemakers were trying to get at," he said.
The regional government imposed traffic bans and increased the police presence to ensure social security.
The local government said they immediately informed the citizens of the sabotage through TV, calling for them to take precautions.
Qiangba Puncog, Tibet Autonomous Regional Government chairman, who is in Beijing for the parliamentary meeting, condemned the separatist activities. "We will severely deal with those who engage themselves in activities of splitting the nation in accordance with the law," he said.
"Their separatist plot will not succeed. It's the common will of the Tibetan people to maintain national unity, ethnic solidarity and social harmony," he added.
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