BEIJING - More than 280,000 people in China's southwestern Tibet autonomous region are facing threats from geological hazards, according to a local land and resources official.

A geological survey has pinpointed 8,930 points in Tibet that are potential sites of geological disasters, mostly from collapses and landslides, said Ngawang, head of the Tibet regional land and resources department.

Potential losses brought by the geological disasters might be as high as 9.1 billion yuan ($1.4 billion), said Ngawang, a deputy to the country's top legislature, the National People's Congress, who is in Beijing for the annual parliamentary session.

He said Tibet lags behind other areas in disaster surveillance, prevention and relief, and thus called on the central government to give Tibet more financial support in disaster prevention and relief as well as in personnel training.