Shortly after the road to Yangyi Village was restored around midnight, injured villagers were sent to two hospitals in downtown Lhasa for treatment.

Injured residents are transferred to ambulance at Yangyi Village, the epicenter of the earthquake, in Gedar Township of Damxung County in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, in the early morning of Oct. 7, 2008. [Purbu Zhaxi/Xinhua]

"Most of them suffer traumas or bone fractures," said Tashi Namgyal, president of the People's Hospital, the leading hospital in Lhasa where seven injured villagers were being treated.

The other 12 injured people were admitted to the General Hospital of Tibet's Area Command of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

Hao Peng, vice chairman of Tibet's regional government, visited them 4 a.m. Tuesday.

A majority of the quake victims were women, children and elderly people. Most men were away mowing and storing forage grass for the winter, said Tsering Samdrup, a Yangyi villager.

Fearing their homes would collapse, most families stayed out in tents for the night amid continuous after shocks. Some wept for the dead.

"I can't believe it," cried Nyima, a Tibetan herder who lost her two-year-old daughter. "Now our family of nine was reduced to eight."

Tenzin Chodrak said he was putting extra hay into the sheepfold when his home toppled in the quake. "My brother's son died and my mother was injured," he said.