DHARAMSHALA, January 10: A fire broke out at a nunnery in the premises of the popular Serta Larung monastery in Tibet’s Serta County last evening around 8pm (local time) gutting around 80 nuns’ quarters, according to sources.
The resident monks, nuns and local Tibetans made efforts to extinguish the fire, but heavy wind made it difficult for them to extinguish the fire. No human casualty has been reported so far and the actual loss to property is not yet known. The cause of the fire has not been ascertained yet.
Pictures of the fire appeared immediately on Chinese social networking site weibo.com. They also were seen on the facebook but deleted after some users posted comments saying someone from the monastery’s administration requested them not to publicize the fire incident.
Founded in 1980, Serta Larung is often described as the world’s largest Tibetan Buddhist institute.
This is second incident of fire in a monastery in just two months. The main prayer hall of the 433 year old Lithang monastery was gutted in a fire that broke out on the night of Nov. 16, 2013.
