Floods Shutter Nearly 1,400 Schools Across Burma Skip to main content

Floods Shutter Nearly 1,400 Schools Across Burma

By | Tuesday, August 4, 2015 |
Families displaced by flooding pass the time in Kale Township, Sagaing Division, on Monday. (Photo: Hein Htet / The Irrawaddy)
Families displaced by flooding pass the time in Kale Township, Sagaing Division, on Monday. (Photo: Hein Htet / The Irrawaddy)
RANGOON — Burma’s government announced on Monday that a total of 1,387 schools have been temporarily shuttered due to severe flooding that has affected wide swathes of the country in recent weeks.
In a statement published in state media on Tuesday, the government said flooding in 11 states and divisions, caused by heavy rains over the last two months, had forced a disruption of the ongoing academic year at 1,010 primary schools, 293 middle schools and 84 high schools across nine states and divisions.
“Schools have been unable to open since [some of the buildings are] flooded and at some schools, refugees who fled their homes due to flooding are staying there,” said Aye Maung, a member of Action-Based Community Development (ABCD), a local NGO in Arakan State.
He said education officials were in the process of assessing water damage to some schools in the state as relief groups have begun to arrive to flood-affected areas.
“The water level is down here,” he said by phone from Mrauk-U on Tuesday. “But the refugees can’t go back to their homes since all of their houses and property were in the flood’s path. They need relief for resettlement, so they are still sheltering at monasteries and schools.”
The government said the Basic Education Department under Burma’s Ministry of Education had distributed stationery worth 317 million kyats (US$257,000) to education administrators’ offices in the affected states and divisions.
Aung Kyaw Tun, head of the Irrawaddy Division Education Department, told The Irrawaddy last week that schools there would be reopened when the floods receded and schoolhouses were deemed safe.
“I have instructed that additional classes be held on weekends for students to be able to catch up on their lessons,” he said.
The Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement has said that more than 217,000 people have been affected by the flooding and 46 had died as of Monday.
State media said Arakan State was hardest hit by the school closures, with 681 schools in the western region shuttered, followed by 239 closings in Pegu Division. The remaining regions grappling with school closures include the divisions of Magwe (128 schools), Sagaing (108), Irrawaddy (77) and Rangoon (24), and the states of Kachin (62), Karen (50) and Chin (18).
Meanwhile, the well-known meteorologist Tun Lwin said the situation in Irrawaddy Division was likely to worsen in the coming days as floodwaters from Upper Burma swell the Irrawaddy River and tributaries whose ultimate destination will be the Andaman Sea via the Irrawaddy Delta.
“Currently, the Irrawaddy Delta, Rangoon, Pegu are flooded. The waters from upstream are going to come in to those areas. The water levels at currently flooded areas will rise further. And areas where water has not reached, water will come,” Tun Lwin told The Irrawaddy on Tuesday.
With additional reporting by Yen Snaing.

http://www.irrawaddy.org/burma/floods-shutter-nearly-1400-schools-across-burma.html
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chronology of the Press in Burma

1836 – 1846 * During this period the first English-language newspaper was launched under British-ruled Tenasserim, southern  Burma . The first ethnic Karen-language and Burmese-language newspapers also appear in this period.     March 3, 1836 —The first English-language newspaper,  The Maulmain Chronicle , appears in the city of Moulmein in British-ruled Tenasserim. The paper, first published by a British official named E.A. Blundell, continued up until the 1950s. September 1842 —Tavoy’s  Hsa-tu-gaw  (the  Morning Star ), a monthly publication in the Karen-language of  Sgaw ,  is established by the Baptist mission. It is the first ethnic language newspaper. Circulation reached about three hundred until its publication ceased in 1849. January 1843 —The Baptist mission publishes a monthly newspaper, the Christian  Dhamma  Thadinsa  (the  Religious Herald ), in Moulmein. Supposedly the first Burmese-language newspaper, it continued up until the first year of the second Angl
Post a Comment
Read more

ARSA claims ambush on Myanmar security forces

Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) on Sunday claimed responsibility for an ambush on Myanmar security forces that left several wounded in northern Rakhine state, the first attack in weeks in a region gutted by violence. Rakhine was plunged into turmoil last August, when a series of ARSA raids prompted a military backlash so brutal the UN says it likely amounts to ethnic cleansing of the Muslim Rohingya minority. The army campaign sent some 650,000 Rohingya fleeing for Bangladesh, where refugees have given harrowing accounts of rape, murder and arson at the hands of security forces and vigilantes. Myanmar's military, which tightly controls information about Rakhine, denies any abuses and insists the crackdown was a proportionate response to crush the "terrorist" threat. ARSA have launched few attacks in recent months.  But the army reported that "about ten" Rohingya terrorists ambushed a car with hand-made mines and gunfire on Friday morning
Post a Comment
Read more

Thai penis whitening trend raises eyebrows

Image copyright LELUXHOSPITAL Image caption Authorities warn the procedure could be quite painful A supposed trend of penis whitening has captivated Thailand in recent days and left it asking if the country's beauty industry is taking things too far. Skin whitening is nothing new in many Asian countries, where darker skin is often associated with outdoor labour, therefore, being poorer. But even so, when a clip of a clinic's latest intriguing procedure was posted online, it quickly went viral. Thailand's health ministry has since issued a warning over the procedure. The BBC Thai service spoke to one patient who had undergone the treatment, who told them: "I wanted to feel more confident in my swimming briefs". The 30-year-old said his first session of several was two months ago, and he had since seen a definite change in the shade. 'What for?' The original Facebook post from the clinic offering the treatment, which uses lasers to break do
1 comment
Read more