Myanmar weighs damage after earthquake hits Bagan
MYANMAR took stock of toppled spires and crumbling temple walls in the ancient capital Bagan yesterday after a powerful earthquake hit the country, killing three and damaging the top tourist destination.
Two young girls and a man died in Magway region where the 6.8 magnitude quake struck onWednesday evening, cracking buildings across the centre of the country and sending tremors that were felt as far away as Bangkok and Kolkata.
Yesterday Myanmar’s President Htin Kyaw travelled to Bagan – the country’s most famous archaeological site – to inspect some of the nearly 200 pagodas damaged by the quake.
The ancient city is home to a vast plain of over 2,500 Buddhist monuments that are among Myanmar’s most venerated religious sites and a top draw for its growing tourism industry.
Teams of government-dispatched engineers and architects spent the day surveying the wreckage, while workers cleared piles of bricks, swept the grounds and sorted through fragments of murals.
Zaw Htay, a government spokesman, said Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung Sang Suu Kyi has urged authorities “not to rush” in renovating the damaged temples.
Bagan’s sweeping expanse of centuries-old ruins – which make for a staggering sunset vista – have survived wars, earth- quakes and tropical sun.
In the city’s heyday, between the 9th and 13th centuries, it was the capital of a powerful kingdom and one of Asia’s most important centres for learning.
“It’s really heartbreaking. I cannot even eat,” said Tin Hla Oo, a trustee of the three-story Htilominlo pagoda, which was badly damaged by the quake.
“We are suffering because this is a great loss, as these [pagodas] are priceless.”
Earthquakes are relatively common in Myanmar, which lies in a tectonically active region. The last major quake to seriously damage Bagan struck in 1975 and was followed by a controversial restoration effort under the military junta that stepped down in 2011.
Experts said the haphazard renovation work, much of it hastily done with modern materials, significantly altered the original architecture and design of some monuments.
UNESCO dispatched experts to Bagan yesterday and is working directly with government ministries.
Suu Kyi, the former political prisoner whose party swept elections in November, is faced with the tough task of modernising an impoverished country whose economy was eviscerated by its former military leaders.
Travel to Myanmar used to be reserved for the well-heeled and intrepid, prepared to endure the travails of a country under junta rule with patchy electricity and limited communications.
But foreign tourists have poured in since the military stepped down, many of them making a beeline for Bagan.
This year Myanmar is on track to welcome 5.5 million tourists, nearly a million more than 2015, according to Tint Thwin, director-general of Ministry of Hotels and Tourism.