DistantNews
Support us
🇧🇪 Belgium /Disasters & Emergencies

Why are we hearing so little about the floods in Tibet? “Journalists are not welcome, China controls the flow of information”

From VRT NWS · () Dutch

Translated from Dutch and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources Ongoing story
  • Floods struck Nepal and China’s Tibet Autonomous Region a week ago, killing more than 1,100 people in Nepal and leaving over 4,000 missing, while China reported 21 deaths and 541 missing.
  • Tibetan human rights groups question China’s official death toll, saying authorities may be withholding the true number of victims.
  • Journalists cannot enter the affected area, limiting independent verification of China’s figures and its claims about rescue efforts.

A week after sudden floods of mud, water and debris struck the Nepal-Tibet border region, Nepal has counted more than 1,100 deaths and over 4,000 missing people. In China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, the official death toll remained at 16 for days before state media raised it to 21. Chinese authorities said 541 people were still missing.

That figure is being challenged by Tibetan human rights organizations, which say the official toll seriously understates the disaster and that the Chinese government is concealing the real number of deaths. The concern is difficult to settle because independent journalists cannot reach the affected area.

“China tries to control the flow of information from the region and does so quite effectively,” said Roland Smid, China correspondent for the Dutch broadcaster RTL Nieuws, speaking to VRT NWS. He said journalists can access only information released by China itself, which they cannot independently check because they are not welcome in Tibet.

China tries to control the flow of information from the region and does so quite effectively.

— Roland SmidThe RTL Nieuws correspondent explained why journalists cannot independently verify China’s flood death toll.

Smid said China is trying to project to the outside world that it has the situation under control and is doing everything possible to rescue people. Chinese state media have shown rescue teams standing in formation with the Chinese flag behind them, then rushing together toward vehicles or aircraft to help victims. “That is what China wants to present to the world, but we simply cannot verify it. We cannot be there,” he said.

The contrast with Nepal is stark: journalists there can accompany rescue workers on assignments, while reporting from Tibet is ruled out. Other channels, including social media, offer little relief. Smid linked that to the intense control imposed on people living in Tibet, where information is already tightly restricted in normal periods. He also described the region’s history, saying Tibet had been autonomous until the 1950s, was occupied and annexed by the People’s Republic of China in 1959, and has undergone extensive Sinicization since then.

That is what China wants to present to the world, but we simply cannot verify it. We cannot be there.

— Roland SmidSmid described Chinese state media’s portrayal of rescue operations and the limits on outside reporting.
About this summary

Originally published by VRT NWS in Dutch. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

More Stories

From Our Blog