Great damage has been done to the shops and government offices in the Aba County of southwestern Sichuan Province since riots rocked the Tibetan-inhabited county on Sunday.

Reportedly, police and government officials were injured by the rioters, and the amount of damage is not available, according to the county government.

The unrest began on Sunday afternoon when a group of rioters, shouting slogans of "Tibet Independence", carrying rocks and self-made petrol bombs or waving the flag of "Tibetan-government-in-exile", attacked government offices, including the county government office building, police stations, hospitals, schools, shops and markets.

They also torched houses and shops, burnt a dozen vehicles, and beat civilians, police and government officials.

Sunday's unrest at Aba followed the riots that broke out in Lhasa on March 14. Thirteen innocent civilians were killed in the riots which the government said were organized by the Dalai clique.

Though the tortured county gradually recovers from the horrible violence, residents are still haunted by fears.

At the Qiangtang Street, one of the worst-hit areas in the riots which is scattered with debris and looted goods, Xinhua reporters saw shop owners cleaning the wrecked venue in the morning.

Recalling the tumultuous day, Peng Yongfan, the owner of the Yongli Shopping Center, looked hopeless and said he lost more than 5 million yuan (707,000 U.S. dollars) of property in Sunday's unrest.

"I have nothing now, but the clothes I put on," said the 54-year-old man, whose head was wrapped with gauze. About 100 rioters broke into Peng's shopping center at around 12:30 on Sunday.

"They destroyed counters with iron bars and rocks and plundered my goods. And they poured petrol on those they could not take away and burnt them," said Feng.

The businessman brought a disfigured steel safe from the storehouse behind the shopping center, showing it to Xinhua reporters.

"I found this at the site after the rioters retreated and the 186,000 yuan in cash has turned into ashes," he said.

"I have been doing business here for 18 years and the business goes on well. How can I expect such misfortune would happen to me? "

The fate of Wu Yuqing's seasoning store is no better than Feng's shopping center with its door distorted, counters smashed and goods scattered all around.

The businesswoman from Pixian County, still in fears, said she could remember the number of "bad men".

"My husband was not with me when they broke in. These people are too brutal. They beat me and even threatened to kill me," said Wu. "I can't sleep at nigh now."

Aba county, which is under the Aba Tibetan-Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, is in northwest Sichuan and neighbors provinces of Qinghai and Gansu in the north. It is more than 200 kilometers from the provincial capital of Chengdu.

It has a population of 63,000, mainly Tibetan, and the county seat of Aba has about 10,000 residents.

(Xinhua News Agency, March 20, 2008)