As news about China's massive earthquake continues to travel across the globe, a Canadian teacher recalls fond memories of his time spent schooling students in the affected Aba Tibetan and Qiang autonomous prefecture area in Sichuan province.

Martin Padgett became the first foreign teacher at Aba Teachers College in 2003.

His heart skipped a beat when he first learned about the earthquake.

In Sichuan's Aba Tibetan and Qiang autonomous prefecture, near the epicenter Wenchuan county, at least 160 are reported dead, 725 injured and 11 missing.

Aba's neighboring Ganzi Tibetan autonomous prefecture, also suffered a comparatively low number of casualties.

"Fortunately, I have received word that the students and teachers at the college are safe," Padgett wrote China Daily from Toronto. "Photos taken by air after the earthquake show the students and teachers camped in the sports field. The buildings are all standing."

Aba today is perhaps best known as a popular tourist destination.

Its name can be traced back to more than 1,200 years, when Songtsen Gampo, the Great King of Tubo (now Tibet), expanded his reign to the area. He moved people from western Tibet's Nagri to settle in Sichuan. The people called themselves "Aliwa" (children of Nagri), which gradually became Aba.

Aba county, for which the prefecture is named, is located 509 km away from the provincial capital Chengdu and 246 km away from the prefecture's capital Maerkang.

Some 60,000 residents in the county have 48 monasteries that include all sects of Tibetan Buddhism. The Nangshig Monastery is the biggest site of the primitive Bon Religion, an aboriginal religion among Tibetans before Buddhism was introduced in the 7th century.

A mere 16 km away from the earthquake's epicenter Wenchuan county, Lixian county of Aba prefecture also holds an important cultural heritage - the Taoping Qiang Village, which was first built in 111 BC.

(China Daily May 16,2008)