Gasa Dzong survives fire
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Charred statues of the ka-gye lhakhang |
26 January, 2008 – The ka-gye (eight pillars) lhakhang, the koenyer’s (caretaker) room, and an engineering cell of the Gasa dzong were reduced to rubble and the main statues inside the lhakhang were charred.
But the 17th-century dzong and its main nangten (spiritual treasures) survived a potentially-devastating fire on January 22. A throngdrel, the length of a three-storied concrete building and numerous religious scriptures, were saved from the lhakhang.
The fire was first seen at 8.05 pm by a 36-year old policemen on duty at the main entrance of the dzong, Gopa (corporal) Sherab. He saw the flames coming out of the lhakhang window, from the koenyer’s room beside the lhakhang, and from the engineering cell above the koenyer’s room.
“I tried blowing the whistle thrice to wake the monks inside the dzong but that failed,” he said. “Then I called other colleagues on my mobile phone and we ran into the dzong and woke up the monks.”
They woke up the Lam Neten who lives beside the lhakhang. “By the time I reached the lhakhang, a huge ball of fire had already engulfed it and dark smoke was rising from the lhakhang windows,” he said. “I lost consciousness for some time.”
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The charred window, the only visible damage from the outside |
The Lam Neten, police and dzongkhag officials who investigated the cause of the fire said that it had started in the koenyer’s room. The koenyer had gone to bathe in the Gasa tshachu, about a half an hour walk down the hill.
As the flames rose the police, many of whom were in Gasa for election duty, fetched the fire hose run by a generator. The tank from where the water was being drawn by the generator soon ran out. Policemen, dzongkhag officials, monks, and civil volunteers tried to feed the pipe from a lake behind the dzong, about 100 metres away, but the generator failed.
More than 200 people then lined up to pass water from the lake to the dzong, using a variety of containers, ranging from utensils to buckets. Their efforts were futile and the fire roared bigger. Just as the fire fighters were beginning to lose hope the police managed to fix the generator.
“We battled the flames until 5:00 am the next morning,” said Gopa Sherab. Meanwhile some people rushed into the dzong to save the treasures. “The dzongkhag officials were very active and people were ready to take risks to save the dzong,” said one volunteer.
The panic-stricken crowd in Gasa was beginning to calm down by Thursday.
Pasang Dorji, 57, the dzongkhag’s business community representative, said he felt as though a close family member had died when he saw the dzong on fire. “Only two days later I calmed down. The whole event seemed like a nightmare.”
A 29-year old monk from Pangrizampa in Thimphu, Sangay Tenzin, who had hiked to Gasa tsachu to bathe said he rushed up to the dzong the moment he heard people shouting that the dzong had caught fire. He had just laid out his dinner and was about to eat.
“It was my first visit to Gasa and it was a bad omen to see the dzong on fire,” said Sangay Tenzin. “Having fought the fire and saved the dzong, I feel better now.”
The Gasa dzongda, Karma Yezer, said that Gasa dzong was one of the oldest dzongs in the country and its significance was reinforced by the fact that Zhabdrung stayed there when he came to Bhutan from Tibet.
“I was worried when I heard that the dzong was on fire and grief stricken when I saw it for myself,” he said. The fire is suspected to have started from an electric short circuit.
By Gyeltshen in Gasa | Source: Kuensel