Prome District Floods Leave 40,000 Homeless Skip to main content

Prome District Floods Leave 40,000 Homeless

A man steers down a flooded street in Shwedaung Township. (Photo: Kaung Myat Min / The Irrawaddy)
PROME, Pegu Division — Almost 40,000 locals across five townships in Prome District have had their homes inundated by rising floodwaters from the Irrawaddy River, with at least one confirmed death in the area.
Padaung, 20 kilometers southwest of the Pegu Division capital of Prome, was the worst hit, with over 5,600 of the township’s 6,800 households and 45 schools swamped. Across the river in Shwedaung, villagers were continuing to pour into relief camps as floodwaters hit their peak.
“People have gradually come to the relief camps since last Wednesday,” Shwe Hla Aung, deputy administrator of Shwedaung Township told The Irrawaddy on Tuesday. “The water level has stopped rising. We have sufficient rice, oil, instant noodles and water at the camps, but I am afraid flood victims may have to stay at the camps for the next ten days.”
Local community groups are assisting with rescue and relief works, but some places in the district remain inaccessible, said Kyaw Thu Soe, secretary of Kittaya Youths Social Organization.
“Though we all rallied round flood victims last week, there are still some places that have not received relief aid at all,” he told The Irrawaddy. “We have received aid not only from [Prome] citizens, but also from Rangoon—but we still need more. Places which are impossible to reach need help.”
Kyaw Thu Soe also called on the government to make preparations for rehabilitation of the area, in a recovery effort that is forecast to take months.
The Prome District General Administration Department said on Tuesday that across Prome, Shwedaung, Paungde, Padaung and Thegon townships, over 17,000 of the area’s 22,000 households had been inundated by floodwaters, along with 113 schools and nearly 40,000 acres of farmland. The department also reported that 68 local roads and a bridge had been destroyed by the Irrawaddy’s rising tide.
Burma’s Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement reported on Tuesday that 69 people had died in floodwaters between June 24 and Aug. 4.

http://www.irrawaddy.org/burma/prome-district-floods-leave-40000-homeless.html

Comments

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

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

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