The dramatic footage was impossible to ignore. A massive surge of water raced through Gyirong Port, a key border crossing between Nepal and Tibet, sweeping away everything in its path as hundreds of people fled for safety.
The scenes, captured by CCTV cameras, rapidly proliferated across social media and appeared on screens worldwide.
Yet, within China, they have not.
Only a single still image has been aired so far by the nation’s state‑run flagship news broadcast.
The video has also been hard to locate on China’s heavily censored internet, and it is equally difficult to find posts describing the flash floods that have claimed hundreds of lives, with just as many still missing since Wednesday.
Beijing has launched a large‑scale rescue operation involving hundreds of emergency workers, which continues, and President Xi Jinping chaired an emergency meeting with officials to co‑ordinate efforts.
When the country’s online content is compared with what the rest of the world has been viewing in recent days, China’s firewall becomes strikingly apparent.
Tibet, annexed by Beijing in the 1950s, has long resisted Chinese Communist Party rule.
China has suppressed protests over the years, sometimes violently, and has been accused of severe human‑rights violations in the Buddhist region. It has labeled the exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, a separatist.
That history means the very name Tibet triggers Chinese censors. Beijing’s sensitivities are especially evident in situations like this.
Daily updates on the missing and the deceased have been issued, as have reports on rescue operations and the dangers posed by a barrier lake that threatens to overflow.
Nevertheless, detailed information remains scarce. There are no survivor accounts from Tibet, and virtually no user‑generated footage depicting the deadly moments or their aftermath.
Anxious families of missing individuals have not yet been heard from, and contacting people there remains nearly impossible even under normal circumstances.
As a journalist who has covered North Korea, I have often found it easier to reach interviewees in Pyongyang than to connect with sources in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa.