The Olympic torch relay through Tibet will be shortened to just one day, the Beijing Games organizers announced on Sunday.

The trip of the Olympic torch was originally planned to last three days, but the Chinese authorities changed the plan in order to avoid any outcry over the controversial relay leg. Another factor which determined the Beijing authorities to make the change was the devastating earthquake which hit Asia’s biggest country, an official with the Beijing Games organisers told AFP.

The sacred flame will only pas through Lhasa, Tibet’s capital, said Li Lizhi, an information officer with the Beijing Olympics. The information officer also said that day may be June 18, but the date wasn’t confirmed yet.

The initial planes were to tour the sacred flame through a district south of Lhasa on June 19 and then spend the next two days in Tibet’s capital, but the riots against Chinese rule which erupted there in March prompted Beijing make some adjustments.

For China, Tibet is an autonomous region, but only in name, the locals would say. The Tibetans are often treated as second-class citizens and this happens in Tibet, a region which is facing a “cultural genocide”, as the Dalai Lama put it.

The 7.9 magnitude quake killed at least 21,000 people in Sichuan province according to the estimations made by local officials. Authorities expect the death toll to rise to as many as many as 50,000 people. Nearly 7,000 school buildings collapsed in the earthquake killing numerous children inside them.