Quake's effects felt in Phila. Tibetan community

The agony of the powerful, killer earthquake in western China reached all the way to Philadelphia Wednesday, as members of the local Tibetan community braced for news.

Nearly 600 were dead and 10,000 injured, with many victims, including school children, believed to be buried under collapsed buildings, according to the state-run China news agency, Xinhua.

"Certainly it's very bad," said Karma Gelek, president of the Tibetan Association of Philadelphia. "People are grieving at the news."

The quake struck a high, remote, mountainous region in Qinghai Province, which borders Tibet, with the epicenter in Yushu county, an area populated mostly by ethnic Tibetans.

Philadelphia-area Tibetans planned to gather at a hastily-called prayer service Wednesday night in Upper Darby.

Gelek awoke Wednesday to a flood of emails from people sharing tidbits of news and asking about the quake, which occurred at 7:49 a.m. China time, 7:49 p.m. eastern time Tuesday.

He sent out a burst of emails, asking if anyone had received word from family in the region, but only a few people had replied as of Wednesday evening.

"I'm not sure as of now how many people here are affected," Gelek said. "Right away I knew it was a Tibetan area. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families."

A vigil was being planned here for Saturday, at a Buddhist temple in North Philadelphia, to pray for the dead and injured, though details were still being worked out, Gelek said. The Tibetan community also hopes to collect money to forward to relief agencies, he said.

Tenzin Tsutrin, a Tibetan who lives in Bryn Mawr, said he had spoken by phone with friends in the Tibetan exile community in India - and the news was not good. A number of people there lost their entire extended families in the quake, he said.

"One monk, his whole family is gone," Tsutrin said. "When we say 'Western China,' it's really a Tibetan area."

Yushu county stands at the foothills of the Himalayas, its people mostly Tibetans who labor as farmers. In the county seat of Gyegu, population 100,000, more than 85 percent of homes have collapsed, Xinhua reported.

Roughly 11,000 Tibetans live in the United States, connected to Tibet not just as a physical place but as their spiritual home. The number of Tibetans in the Philadelphia area has doubled in the past few years, but remains small - about 150, with newcomers arriving from western and northern states and from Dharamsala, India, home of the Tibetan government in exile and of the Dalai Lama.

The spiritual leader offered condolences to victims of the earthquake, saying, "It is my hope that all possible assistance and relief work will reach these people. I am also exploring how I, too, can contribute to these efforts."

Gelek noted that Qinghai Province borders not just Gansu and Sichuan provinces, but Tibet and the Xinjiang Autonomous Region. As such the entire region is politically sensitive, subject to protests by Tibetans and by Uyghurs in Xinjiang, and as a result the Chinese government maintains a large security contingent there.

"There's a big military presence there already," Gelek said, "and we hope they will help with search and rescue."