Quake-damaged school in Xizang sets up tents on playground to shelter teaching staff, their families

A quake-damaged primary school in Maru Township, southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region, has set up more than 30 tents on the playground to serve as temporary shelters for the teaching staff and their families.

The 7.0-magnitude quake struck Baqen County of Nagqu City at 22:33 Beijing time (1433 GMT) on Thursday.

Maru Township was among the areas hit hardest by the quake. The township's only primary school, Maru Township Primary School, was damaged heavily.

Two teaching buildings showed varying degrees of destruction, including visible wall cracks, shattered windows, and some structural collapses. The dormitories for the teaching staff and the students were also affected. Fortunately, all the students and teachers were safely evacuated.

Many of the students were sleeping in their dormitories when the quake occurred. Following the earthquake, the teachers immediately evacuated the students to safety.

"We went to the dormitories right away. Some students were still sleeping, so we woke them up and got them out," a teacher said.

While some teachers were injured in the quake, no students were hurt.

The school's sports field has now been converted into a centralized shelter, where over 30 thick, cotton tents have been set up for the teaching staff, their families, and logistics workers.

Supplies inside the tents are plentiful, including thick quilts, food, snacks, and local specialty tea. Power was restored the day after the earthquake, and logistics staff are ensuring three meals a day for everyone.

One child living in the shelter said six people share a tent, and the quilts distributed to them are quite thick.

"It feels like home because my family is here, and I have my meals here in the morning, at noon, and in the evening," the child said.

Since the winter vacation has not yet begun, the school is actively working out a plan to address the students' schooling, including online teaching or transferring students to nearby safe schools.

To cope with the winter cold, the school has applied to local authorities for prefabricated housing units, which are expected to arrive in the next two days. These units will replace the tents and serve as temporary classrooms.

Quake-damaged school in Xizang sets up tents on playground to shelter teaching staff, their families

The World Young Scientist Summit opened on Saturday in Wenzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, gathering more than 800 scientists and entrepreneurs from over 60 countries and regions.

The event also features an exhibition center outside the main conference venue, with innovative products designed for real-world applications drawing visitors from around the world.

Many are looking beyond the displays to explore potential partnerships, with innovations ranging from the recycling of valuable minerals from construction waste to artificial intelligence (AI) applications across industries.

"Our new approach to handling solid waste uses low-carbon, firing-free and low-temperature rapid-drying processes to turn various types of solid waste into industrial raw and auxiliary materials and recycled building materials," said Shao Zhang, vice president of the Wenzhou Hailuo Group.

"Because in Brazil, we don't have this kind of technology [of using] construction waste to build this. We have searched for new technology, and we are the representative association of engineers in Brazil. We came to China maybe to bring this technology to Brazil," said Leonardo Monteiro Rodrigues from the Brazilian Federation of Engineers.

Priyanga Talagala, a senior lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, highlighted the multilingual capability of an AI agent on display.

"It can understand many different languages. Actually, we are from Sri Lanka, and we tried with our own mother tongue, and she could understand our language very easily, even though it's not very common all around the world," she said.

A wheelchair caught the eyes of Ashutosh Tiwari, secretary general of the International Association of Advanced Materials, which is headquartered in Sweden. Tiwari said he had decided to introduce the product to the European market in cooperation with the Chinese exhibitor.

"So I've taken a picture of the company. And officially, our office will contact [them] to start the business in Sweden and Europe," he said.

New technologies draw global young scientists to Wenzhou