People are evacuated after flooding in Swar township, Myanmar, August 29, 2018. REUTERS/Stringer

                    AUGUST 30th, 2018

By Patryk Krych | The World Daily

50,000 Myanmar Citizens Forced to Evacuate Homes After Dam Failure

After a dam failure last Wednesday, over 50,000 citizens in Kyin Kone, Myanmar, were forced to evacuate their homes to evade the disaster. Many communities and structures have suffered damages and flooding as a cause of the failure.

Fire authorities in Myanmar were sent not too long after the breach had been discovered at around 5:30am, despite authorities having given the dam an apparently thorough inspection only days earlier, in spite of local residents’ apprehensions about overspill, state-run media stated.

“The (spillway) of the dam was broken and flooded the two villages close to the highway,” the Myanmar fire department in charge of the situation posted on its Facebook page.

The incident brings up the long-discussed issues over safety in SouthEast Asia, in terms of dams and hydroelectric stations, especially after last month’s failure of a hydroelectric dam in the neighbouring Laos, which ended with 27 people dead, and another thousand left without their homes.

A few dams had been reported to be overflowing this past month, but an irrigation and water management official told the privately-run Myanmar Times newspaper there was no noticeable or reportable risk of a collapse occurring.

As many as 14 clusters of villages were fighting off flooding, the fire department stated, and many more have been affected, as some neighbouring villages not affected directly by the incident have also been evacuated after fear of the waters rising further, stated an official of the Natural Disaster Management Department who requested anonymity, having lacked the proper authorisation to speak to media.

The flood of water was 2.4m high when it struck the first village of Kyun Taw Su, and flooded the close-by Swar, along with a portion of the larger town of Yedashe, stated a Swar based Journalist. In total, it’s thought that over 12,000 houses were abandoned, and around 54,000 people evacuated, stated yet another official from the Department of Relief and Resettlement, also wishing to remain anonymous.

“If you go to my house, there are no belongings left,” stated farmer Aung Aung, whose village of Kone Gyi Lan Sone was flooded without warning, sending him into a mad panic to warn his friends and neighbours, ending with them all traveling to higher grounds so that they may escape the disaster.

“It was only after that we realised the situation,” he said to Reuters. “The little shop over there is completely destroyed and washed away,” he further stated, indicating here and there, highlighting the damages in the water-ridden city.

A Yedashe administrative official stated that authorities reported three people missing near the villages closest to the dam, and whilst one has been found alive and in no critical circumstance recently, the other two remain to be found. “The two other people are still missing,” said the official, Aye Myin Kyi. “We don’t assume them dead, we are still looking for them.”

Pictures are available on social media, depicting Myanmar soldiers helping children and the elderly through the knee-deep waters onto rafts and kayaks to help evacuate the citizens of the flooded viallages.

Despite the waters having begun to subside around afternoon that same Wednesday, they had still flooded beneath a damaged bridge that connected Myanmar’s cities of Mandalay and Yangon. The capital of Myanmar: Naypyidaw, has also suffered as a cause of the floods, having had the majority of its surrounding fields flooded.

The Deputy Minister of Construction Kyaw Linn, who joined in repair work by surveyors and workers., stated that; “When the water flooded the bridge we closed it, and by the time we arrived here around 8 am, two columns had sunk around two feet.”

In regards to the situations and damages, the Myanmar government is assessing their dam projects to assist in the eradication of chronic power shortages, but their potential environmental impact makes the projects contentious.

By Patryk Krych | Source: Reuters 

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