Sadness after ancient town gutted
Print Edition
The smell of ash lingered over a snowy ancient town yesterday in Shangri-la, an area famous with tourists in Yunnan Province.
As many as 300 homes were destroyed in the 1,300-year-old Tibetan town of Dukezong on Saturday after the worst fire in its history. More than 2,600 residents have been relocated.
“I grew up here. I am heartbroken at the sight of such a beautiful ancient town being turned to ash,” said Li Gang, director of the Cultural Relic Management Institute with the Deqen Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture.
“This is a warning to us about protecting and conserving the town and its traditional culture,” he said.
Once a hub along the ancient Tea-Horse Road, Dukezong was built according to “Shambhala, or heavenly realm” in Sutra and known as the “Town of Moonlight” in Tibetan.
It became famous due to British writer James Hilton’s 1933 novel “The Lost Horizon,” which describes a journey in the mythical land.
In 2001, the region was renamed Shangri-la County and is on the southern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and borders Yunnan, Sichuan and Tibet.
At 1:37am on Saturday, a fire at Ruyi Inn, a wooden building, broke out.
The inn was in the middle-lower section of the mountain town.
“At around 2am, my sister called me about the fire. I quickly woke up the six tourists in the inn,” said waitress Arongmi.
They all escaped before the inn was turned to rubble.
Song Yunfeng, a 20-year-old native Tibetan girl, witnessed the blaze.
“The fire spread and the whole town was engulfed,” she said. “The sky was lit red and wooden homes crackled in the flames.”
Song said inns, cafes, souvenir shops and dwellings in the Town of Moonlight were now rubble.
“Most of the jewelry and antique souvenirs melted,” said Li Peiji, who owns a silver store.
Searching for the remaining goods in the snow-covered ruins, Li Peiji said his losses were estimated to be more than 1 million yuan (US$165,400).
Dukezong was designed in a way to prevent it from being destroyed by fire. When it was initially built there was space and water between buildings to prevent fire from spreading.
“However, a lot of spare space was used for restaurants, shops and inns as tourism boomed,” Li Peiji said.
Hubei tourist Tan Fengfan was left devastated after arriving in the town late yesterday.
“We learned about the fire in the news. But we decided to come to Shangri-la and see,” said Tan.
“I am expecting the town to be reconstructed,” he said.
Dukezong is an important part of Shangri-la, home to Meri mountain, a grand canyon and beautiful landscapes, said Wang Guohua, a county official.
“I hope people will still come” Wang added.
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