Nineteen days after the Gyirong mudslide disaster, the mountain-ringed town of Gyirong is slowly finding its rhythm again.

Walking through the town, shops along the streets are reopening one by one. Ma Shemu, a Hui merchant who has lived in Xizang for nearly twenty years, is already very much part of the community. When our reporter meets him, he is chatting with neighbors in fluent, authentic Tibetan.

“Gyirong is my home. I believe it will recover quickly, and I will stay here to do business and live my life.”

Photo shows the morning in Gyirong Town on September 13, 2026.

Wandering through the streets, the reporter steps into a sweet tea house. Owner Nyima Chodzom runs the place with her grandfather, Adan. Both are Gyirong natives. During their chat, the elderly Adan explains the meaning behind the town’s name:“Gyi means comfort, rong means place. Gyirong— a place of comfort and ease.”

Since 2009, the grandfather and granddaughter have watched the town improve year by year. The sudden disaster damaged their home, filling their hearts with pain. Yet they believe that, with the care and help of the Party and the state, the town will surely regain its former liveliness soon.

“We have witnessed with our own eyes the earth-shaking changes in our hometown. Gyirong Town will soon be lively again,”said Nyima Chodzom.

The South Asia Golden Pagoda Hotel in the town voluntarily provided free accommodation for frontline rescue workers. Tashi Yangzom, the front office manager, saw all the hardship the rescue workers endured these past days. During the emergency rescue period, firefighters and rescue teams often worked until late at night before returning to the hotel, covered in mud, footsteps heavy, faces etched with exhaustion. 

Recalling these scenes, Tashi Yangzom chokes up several times: "Seeing them come back covered in mud, dragging their exhausted bodies back, it really breaks my heart."

After the disaster, 20-year-old delivery rider Jia Tao stays at his post. During the busiest days, orders keep coming in from midnight until dawn. He delivers over a hundred orders in a single day, most of them to hotels where frontline rescuers are resting.

“During that time, many businesses in town voluntarily stay open late so that firefighters can order hot meals at any time,”Jia Tao says, adding that neighbors in the town have always helped and supported one another.

Twenty-four-year-old Nyima Dondrub is a native Gyirong resident born in the 2000s, After graduating from university in 2024, he served as an auxiliary police officer at the Gyirong Entry-Exit Border Inspection Station for seven months, experiencing the responsibility and hardship of border duty and befriending a group of predecessors and comrades-in-arms who stood guard side by side. After resigning in 2025 and returning to Gyirong Town, he bought a truck and joined the Gyirong Town truck fleet.

Photo shows children playing on the square in Gyirong Town.

After the disaster, road clearance work becomes urgent. Nyima Dondrub volunteers, putting aside his restaurant business to transport stone materials. The one-way distance from the stone loading point to the repair site is 40 kilometers, 80 kilometers round trip. In just a few days, he makes 15 consecutive trips.“I‘ve seen so many people persevering and sacrificing at the port before. Compared to them, the distance I drove is nothing. When your hometown is in trouble, young people should step up to the front.”

Zhou Nan, a supermarket owner from Jiangxi, has put down roots in Gyirong for many years and long ago regarded it as his second hometown. In his daily life, he often organizes football games for neighbors of all ethnic groups in town, and everyone gets along like one big family. “I‘ve lived here for so many years, I‘ve long considered Gyirong my home. Everyone is very united. It won’t be long before the town surely recovers to how it was.”

Gyirong Town is home to people of all ethnic groups. Day after day, they make a living and look out for one another. Different professions, different ethnicities— but for every one of them, Gyirong is home. Everyone hopes the town will soon regain its former liveliness and prosperity, and they believe that as long as people are united, Gyirong will surely get better and better.

Photo shows sanitation workers cleaning up in Gyirong Town.

Photo shows residents taking a walk in Gyirong Town.

Source:  Xizang Daily

Translator: Dan Zhen, Zhi Xinghua

First Review: Zhi Xinghua, Zhang Yiming

Second Review: Li Chengye, Drakpa Wangchen

Third Review: Hu Rongguo