Tibet campaigners accuse China of underreporting flood casualties

China is facing accusations from Tibetan campaigners that it is concealing the scale of devastation caused by last week’s deadly floods in Tibet, as restrictions on information make it difficult to independently assess casualties and damage, The Guardian reported

The Chinese have now said 16 people had been killed, and 546 people were missing in the devastated region – 261 of them were foreign nationals. The International Campaign for Tibet claims the toll may be much larger and that around 300 houses were lost in four villages. “What is visible in Nepal exposes what is being concealed in Tibet,” president of the campaign group, Tencho Gyatso, told The Guardian.

She said Sale, Serchung, Labi and Rizi were among the worst-affected villages where many people were still unaccounted for.

“The little information that we can gather from the ground” indicates “far higher” casualties, Gyatso said. The flood tore down a valley on August 26, triggered by the failure of a glacier on the Nepal-China border, which unleashed a torrent of water, mud and rocks. Nepal has already reported hundreds of deaths and thousands of people missing in the same area.

China has rejected allegations of censorship, saying information about the disaster has been released transparently and promptly. Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun also rejected what he called “baseless and malicious speculation” over the disaster response.