Dam breach floods 85 villages
SWAR CREEK DAM: As many as 85 villages were flooded in Myanmar after a dam failed, unleashing waters that blocked a major highway and forced more than 63,000 people from their homes, a staterun newspaper said yesterday.
The disaster spotlights safety concerns about dams in Southeast Asia after the collapse last month of a hydroelectric dam in neighbouring Laos that displaced thousands of people and killed at least 27.
Firefighters, troops and officials launched a desperate rescue effort on Wednesday (local time) after the spillway of an irrigation dam burst at Swar creek in central Myanmar, sending a torrent of water through villages and the nearby towns of Swar and Yedashe.
By yesterday morning the water was receding, but two people remained missing and were feared to have been washed away, Min Thu, deputy administrator of Yedashe, said.
‘‘People whose villages are on higher ground are preparing to go back to their villages,’’ he said.
The ruptured spillway had flooded 85 villages, affecting more than 63,000 people, damaging a bridge and submerging a section of highway, the Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper said.
Work was under way yesterday to repair the dam, where the water level had dropped by several meters, exposing sandy banks.
Kaung Myat Thein, an irrigation official at the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation, said a probe would seek the cause of the dam breach.
Days before the breach, authorities had given the allclear to the dam, despite residents’ concerns about overspill, staterun media have said.