Floodwaters Damage Temples in Mrauk-U Skip to main content

Floodwaters Damage Temples in Mrauk-U

By MOE MYINT / THE IRRAWADDY
August 5, 2015

The Ministry of Culture’s Archeology Department and the National Museum of Myanmar reported on Wednesday that three pagodas and a repository of Buddhist scriptures had been flooded in the last week. The grounds of the palace in the center of Mrauk-U, the seat of the Arakanese kingdom between the 15th and 18th centuries, were also inundated during the recent deluge.

U Sun Win, assistant director of the sub-regional Archeology Department, said that low-lying temples and buildings were vulnerable as a result of flood damage.

“Some of the stone pagodas are cracked at the base,” he said. “We will need to do maintenance work because the foundation stones will have less strength than normal. [Importantly], we need to erect fences to protect the pagodas.”

He added that the nearby Danyawaddy and Vesali palaces had also suffered minor damage in the floods, but most of the city’s famous pagodas had been spared because they sat higher than the flood peak.

Local resident Aung Soe Myint told The Irrawaddy that Ba Saw Phyu Pagoda had cracked while the interior areas of Mintwutsae and Shwe Maw Daw pagodas were completely submerged. Other locals were unable to confirm the extent of the damage to low-lying buildings, as they were busy with local flood relief efforts.

Home to some 380 stone temples, Mrauk-U is one of Burma’s largest tourist attractions and an enduring center of Arakanese culture. The Burmese government and Arakan State authorities announced plans to nominate the site for the Unesco World Heritage list in February, and began taking measures to improve preservation of Buddhist temples and other buildings dating back to the Arakanese kingdom.

After nearly two weeks of heavy rains, Arakan State was one of the four regions declared to be a disaster zone by the Burmese government over the weekend.

Hla Thein, the director of the Arakan State Department of Information, said on Wednesday that at least 39 people had died in the state since the flooding crisis began, along with the loss of 900 cattle and the destruction of 200,000 acres of rice paddy fields. Dozens of schools and monasteries across Arakan State have also been destroyed.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Monday that over 2,000 people from Mrauk-U were taking shelter in 15 evacuation centers across the township.

______Irrawaddy

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