China’s tight control over information from Tibet is hampering efforts to assess the full scale of devastation and coordinate understanding of the rescue operation after catastrophic flash floods struck villages along the Nepal-China border, with Nepal’s death toll rising to over 700 while China has officially reported only five deaths.
The floods struck the Himalayan border region after an enormous glacier broke away from a mountaintop and sent a torrent of water cascading into valleys on both sides of the frontier. While the disaster has left hundreds dead in Nepal, the situation in Tibet remains far less clear because access to the affected areas and the flow of information are tightly controlled.
On Friday, China’s President Xi Jinping chaired a meeting directing rescue operations and called on authorities to “make every effort to search for missing people from China and abroad”. He also sent Premier Li Qiang to the affected region. State-run Xinhua reported that Li “emphasised that General Secretary Xi Jinping is deeply concerned about the people in the disaster-stricken areas”.
China has also deployed hundreds of emergency personnel, including members of the People’s Liberation Army, to the affected areas. Its emergency services are considerably better resourced than those in Nepal and have specialised capabilities suited to the treacherous mountainous terrain. Yet details about the extent of the destruction and the work being carried out by Chinese rescuers remain scarce.
That lack of information has become a major obstacle to understanding the disaster on the Tibetan side of the border, particularly around the Gyirong crossing, where villages are home to several thousand people. China has officially reported just five deaths, a figure that stands in stark contrast to Nepal’s toll of 768. The disparity has raised questions about whether the official Chinese figures capture the full human cost of the disaster.
Unlike in Nepal, where journalists have travelled towards the disaster zone and spoken directly to survivors, rescue workers and villagers, independent reporting from Tibet is severely restricted. Chinese state media have broadcast reports from the affected region and sent journalists to cover the rescue operation. But the coverage has largely focused on relief efforts rather than the scale of destruction. In one broadcast from a relief centre in Tibet, a journalist reported from the site without speaking to any of the people seated behind them.
The restrictions are rooted in Tibet’s status as one of China’s most sensitive regions. Beijing has maintained tight controls over the territory since bringing it under Chinese rule in the 1950s. International journalists are generally permitted to visit only through closely managed government tours, while many Tibetans face restrictions on travelling abroad and have limited contact with the outside world. Tibetans can also face punishment for speaking to foreign journalists, making independent accounts of the floods particularly difficult to obtain.
“Everything about Tibet is seen through the national security prism. And therefore nobody is going to say anything or report anything that has not been cleared from the very top,” said Steve Tsang, the director of the China Institute at Soas University of London. For people on the ground, Tsang said, “you can’t report a higher figure of deaths, even if you have seen more bodies yourself, until the official statement says that the figure has gone up”.
The information vacuum could also make it harder to understand what is happening across the border in Nepal, where rescue teams are still dealing with the consequences of the floods and the possible causes of the disaster are being investigated by scientists. The floods devastated settlements on both sides of the Himalayan frontier, but the contrast in access to information has been stark. In Nepal, survivors have described in detail how torrents of water and mud swept through their homes, while journalists have been able to reach affected communities and document the destruction. In Tibet, however, independent assessments remain difficult.
The restrictions are particularly consequential because rescue operations on the Chinese side could provide vital information about missing people and conditions near the border. Nepalese and Chinese communities in the region are connected by the same fragile Himalayan landscape, meaning developments on one side can directly affect the other. China’s superior emergency resources could potentially make its response an important part of the wider rescue effort. But the secrecy surrounding its operations has made it difficult for outsiders to determine what is being done, how many people remain missing and how extensive the destruction really is.
“The Chinese have missed a trick,” Tsang said. But “they don’t have that confidence. Their instinct is control.” As Nepal continues to count its dead and search for survivors, the information restrictions across the border mean that one of the most important parts of the disaster remains largely hidden from public view.
