... nearly 400 dams, most of them small, were damaged by the quake. Hundreds of rivers snake through the mountainous Tibetan plateau before descending into the fertile Sichuan basin where they provide critical irrigation. The activist group International ...

... and salt between Tibet and China crossed Deqin and Zhongdian beneath the 18,000-foot-plus peaks that mark the Tibetan plateau's eastern descent to the Chinese lowlands. Khampas -- the eastern Tibetans famed as traders, horsemen and, in ...