Sun Qingyu gets very angry when he recalls what rioters did to his shop.

From 5 pm till midnight last Sunday, rioting engulfed the seat of Maqu county of northwestern Gansu province with the mob breaking into government buildings and shops, inflicting great losses.

Sun's tiny cigarette and liquor store is now barely recognizable, after it was completely wrecked and all of his stock was either stolen or destroyed by the mob.

"I heard loud noises outside, several yelling rioters waving iron bars then forced their way in and started to smash my shop to pieces," Sun recalled.

"I locked the door of my bedroom, but they pounded it so hard that my five-year-old son was terrified and started crying. I had to make a hole in the wall to help my wife and son flee," he said.

Many other people in Maqu county, which has a population of around 33,300, suffered similar experiences.

Tang Yongqiang, the proprietor of a small liquor store, said: "I closed the store's shutters, but the rioters forced them open like mad people."

"They slashed and battered the counters with their knives and clubs. Those villains not only took away cases of cigarettes, alcohol and tea, they also robbed me of around 10,000 yuan ($1,400)."

When those people were about to finish, several women rushed in to set fire to the place. Tang tried to stop them, only to be beaten and forced to hide in a toilet.

The Huanghe electrical appliances store run by Ma Qinghua was the biggest of its kind in Maqu county. But rather than televisions and microwave ovens, the shop is now full of ashes.

"Commodities worth nearly one million yuan ($140,800) were destroyed before my very eyes," he sighed. "Several times, we attempted to put out the fire with fire extinguishers, but knife-wielding rioters stopped us."

According to preliminary statistics from Maqu county government, 70 percent of the area's shops were looted or damaged by rioters, while more than 100 larger stores like Ma's suffered tremendous losses.

"I have been doing business in Maqu for 20 years and witnessed the development of the county. Tibetan herdsmen now have access to water and electricity, and roads have been built. I don't understand why someone would want to ruin this," Ma said.

Unrest broke out in Lhasa, capital of the Tibet autonomous region, on March 14, which was repeated in the counties of Xiahe, Maqu, Luqu and Jone and Hezuo City in Gannan Tibetan autonomous prefecture of Gansu and Aba county of Sichuan province.

China Central Television screened a video clip showing mobs riding horses and wielding batons.

Some of them shouted "Tibet independence" slogans and waved flags of the "Tibetan government-in-exile".

They stormed government offices, police stations, hospitals, schools, banks, shops and markets, witnesses were reported as saying.

(Xinhua News Agency March 24, 2008)