DHARAMSHALA, May 10: A five-year-old Tibetan boy had died and his aunt seriously injured in a collapse of a tunnel under construction in Tibet’s Dege County on April 26, the Voice of Tibet reported.
The woman is currently receiving medical treatment in a hospital in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province. The authorities had promised monetary compensation for the family of the dead boy and his injured aunt but have not paid anything so far, a Tibetan source said. Even the medical expense of the injured woman has to be borne by her family as authorities have not paid anything.
On May 7, local Tibetans sat outside the administrative office of Dege County demanding compensation for the two victims and for those Tibetans whose houses were destroyed last year for paving way for the tunnel project that began in May last year.
“The authorities destroyed houses of local Tibetans for this tunnel project and promised compensation for them but they have received nothing so far”, said the source.
In Dec 2103, local Tibetans carried out protests against the County officials demanding immediate halt to the project, which they claimed was contributing to landslides and erosion in the area.
