A media tour to a riot-hit region in northwest China's Gansu Province was interrupted by a group of lamas at the Labrang Lamasery on Wednesday, but it soon resumed.

An officer with the Information Office of the State Council, organizer of the media tour, said the coverage of the reporters would go on as scheduled.

About 20 lamas rushed out of a building at the Labrang Monastery in Xiahe, and gathered in plaza in front of more than 20 Chinese and foreign journalists at around 12:30 on Wednesday.

The lamas left the site about five minutes later themselves as reporters resume their visit in the lamasery.

Gun'gyihu Jinba, deputy director of the temple's administrative office, said that there are more than 1,000 Buddhist disciples in the temple, and those who disrupted the tour were only a handful few.

"As you all can see, they tipped our religious order," he said.

Living Buddha Dainkaicang, director of the Buddhism Chapter in the Xiahe City, told reporters that the lamas were ignorant and were used by separatists. "They were hoodwinked and instigated by the separatists. That was how the interruption happened," he added.

The Labrang monastery is one of the six most important lamaseries in the Yellow Sect of Tibetan Buddhism and is home to more than 1,000 lamas.