Homes evacuated after riverbank collapse
July 26 - August 1, 2010
A woman carries a water pot past a flooded house in East Nyaungpinthar village in Patheingyi township, on the east bank of the Ayeyarwady River near Mandalay, on July 16. Pic: Mann Thar Lay
HUNDREDS of residents of a village near Mandalay in Patheingyi township had to evacuate their flooded homes earlier this month after high water caused sections of the east bank of the Ayeyarwady River to collapse.
U Thein Ko, the head of East Nyaungpinthar village, said last week the high water level and surging current caused the bank to collapse, inundating more than 50 homes. Residents are now dismantling the houses and preparing to rebuild them in locations away from the riverbank.
“A total of 37 homes have been removed from the floodwaters and 184 people were evacuated by July 18,” said U Thein Ko, who is also the head of neighbouring West Nyaungpinthar and Bohlakone villages.
Another 15 flooded homes are still to be moved away from the river, he added.
The village was established in the early 1980s and was later divided into East Nyaungpinthar and West Nyaungpinthar, which have a combined population of more than 2000 residents.
Most of the evacuated families sought the refuge of friends and family until they rebuild their homes.
“We are staying at our relatives’ houses because we have nowhere to go at the moment. The authorities came to the village and examined our houses,” said U Nyein Maung from East Nyaungpinthar.
While the water level has fallen, residents said they couldn’t rebuild their homes in the same spot because the land has disappeared into the river.
“We need land urgently. We need new land to build houses using the materials we salvaged from our destroyed homes. We will be fine if we get somewhere to rebuild our houses,” he said.
Officials from the regional health department have visited the displaced families.
On July 9, the Ayeyarwady River hit 1170 centimetres at Mandalay but had fallen to 1096cm on July 16. The river’s danger lever is 1260cm and the record in recent years is 1382cm, measured in 2004.
Each year, residents of about 50 villages beside the Ayeyarwady River in Patheingyi and Madaya townships need to shift their homes because of flooding. “Every year, we have to move like this. The houses in our village are built as tall buildings [to escape the flood water]. We moved to the other side of the river and made temporary huts,” said a woman from Yaywin village in Patheingyi township.
