page_title: Rutog County
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Rutog County / History
caption_attribution_description: English: an image from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite shows both avalanches in false color. This image was acquired on October 4, 2016.
context_page_description: Rutog County is a county in Ngari Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. The county seat is Rutog, located some 1,140 km or 700 miles west- northwest of the Tibetan capital, Lhasa. Rutog County shares a border with India.
  The county has a rich history of folk tales, myths, legends, proverbs and folk songs and has many caves, rock paintings and other relics. The Xinjiang-Tibet Highway runs through the Rutog County for 340 km. The county, established in March 1961 covers 74,500 km² but has a very low population density with a population of just over 10,000.
context_section_description: Rutog was part of the Maryul kingdom in medieval Tibet.
  Although when the county was established in 1961, it was part of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, in 1978 it became a part of the Tibet Autonomous Region, under the jurisdiction of the Ngari Prefecture.
  In October 1983, the county seat was moved from Rutog to Derukunzi (德汝昆孜).
  At around 11 AM on July 17, 2016, nine people, 350 sheep and 110 yaks were buried in an avalanche about 250 km (160 mi) from Rutog Town (at 34°02′45.4″N 82°17′24.6″E). The avalanche fell on a grazing area and the snow was as much as 8 m (26 ft) deep. The local government dispatched rescuers and equipment to the site of the avalanche. The avalanche was described by NASA as one of the largest avalanches in history. On September 21, 2016, another similarly large avalanche occurred just to the south.
caption: Aru Range after the 2016 avalanches
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