We cannot know when a serious earthquake will strike Yangon or other areas of Myanmar. But, should a quake occur, you will have only a few seconds to respond, to protect yourself and your family.

If you have not prepared beforehand and practiced your response, the chances are greater that you could be killed or injured.

What would you do when your home, office or school starts to shake? Would you run to find your children or friends?

If you say, yes – that’s the wrong answer.

A handful of non-governmental organizations are working with the government and public schools to help with drills and advice about being ready for earthquakes.

So what would you do if you haven't sat in on one of these advice sessions or read the do’s and don’ts?

Here is a quick guide to prepare yourself and your family on how to respond. The information and simple steps could be the difference between life and death, yet few people in Myanmar know the proper actions to take before, during and after an earthquake.

The key to surviving an earthquake and reducing the risk of death or injury lies in pre-planning and practicing what you and your family would do when the ground starts to shake.

During a major earthquake, you may hear a rumbling sound that gradually grows louder. You may feel a rolling sensation that starts out gently, but, within a few seconds, grows violent, or you may first be jarred by a violent jolt.

A second or two later, you will feel shaking and may find it impossible to stand up and walk across the room, the ceiling may be collapsing, furniture may be thrown across the room, and window glass may shatter.

A fire may suddenly burst out in the kitchen. A thought may flash through your mind, where’s my family or friends– what are they doing?

Thinking about how you would respond to an earthquake before it happens means you’ll be less likely to panic and feel more confident that you and your loved ones will know what to do.

Preparing your family for earthquakes

With pre-planning, you’ll be able to respond more quickly to a quake. Tell your family you want to have a meeting to talk about a serious subject, and calmly explain the threat of earthquakes and the importance of working together should an earthquake strike.

Walk through all the rooms in your house and talk about what possible dangers might arise during an earthquake. Ask your family what they would do if they were in one of the rooms and things started shaking, and falling and shattering. This will create an opportunity to have a conversation about how to stay safe during a quake.

The first important rule: Drop, cover, hold on

With the first tremor, everyone should immediately fall down onto their hands and knees as fast as they can and then cover their head and neck with their hands and arms, or their entire body if they can get under a shelter such as a strong bed, sturdy table or desk. Don’t get out of bed and run to another room. Don’t run to find your family members or friends. Immediately drop and seek cover. If you’re injured, it could make it harder to help them later.

Ask them what they would do if they can’t quickly find a shelter to lie under? Explain that if there is no shelter nearby, they should lie down immediately near an interior wall or next to some low-lying furniture that won't fall on them, and then cover their head and neck with their arms and hands.

Hold on to the shelter (or to your head and neck) as long as the shaking continues, and if the shelter moves, be prepared to move with it.

Everyone should stay away from windows or glass that could shatter or any objects that could fall on them. Ask children your family members to point out the nearest places in each room where they could drop down, cover and hold on.

And then make them show you how they would do it.

Practice makes perfect.

Conduct a home hazard hunt

Many earthquake related injuries are cause by objects or furniture falling or sliding onto people during violent tremors. The best approach is to secure the most sturdy (potentially dangerous) items to walls or to the floor, so there’s less chance of movement. Can you put anti-shatter glass or reinforcing film on glass windows or doors? Also, be sure your household furniture and other items don’t block a clear escape route, if you need to exit your home.

Teaching as game playing

Make earthquake training a game or quiz that you play several times a year. Your children will take the information seriously if they see that you love them and are concerned about their safety.

Make training fun. When you say, “The room is shaking!” - they should quickly demonstrate how they would seek shelter.

If you make a game of practicing home earthquake drills, it will help children understand what to do in case you are not with them during an earthquake.

When an earthquake occurs

In Yangon, many buildings, apartments and homes are old and at risk of major damage should a quake strike. During an earthquake, most deaths and injuries are caused by collapsing structures or heavy, falling objects, such as bookcases, fans, cabinets, or air conditioning units.

If you have children, make sure you and they also understand their school's emergency procedures for earthquakes or disasters – if they have such a programme. This will help you coordinate where, when, and how to reunite with your child after an earthquake.

Are emergency items stored in one place?

Ask family members what emergency items they will need following a quake. Flashlights, a first aid kit and important family documents are essential. Can you keep a large container of water stored for emergencies, such as putting out fires or for drinking? Can you keep these emergency items nearby and does each family member know where they are located? If possible, each family member should have first aid training.

After the shaking stops, all family members should go to a safe evacuation area, preferably a large empty space or temple near home but away from buildings. During big quakes, you should expect aftershocks to occur.

Do you have a nearby temple or park that is a good gathering place? Be sure that every family member knows where to go and meet up in case you are separated.

Important family information

Make a list of important, hard-to-replace information and put it in a secure location, which you can easily grab and take with you if you have to evacuate the area.  Include important emergency telephone numbers, such as police, fire and medical centres; the telephone numbers of electric, gas, and water companies; the names and telephone numbers of neighbours; important medical information; vehicle identification number, year, model, and license number of your vehicle, etc.; your bank's telephone number; account types and numbers; and so forth.

Prepare an easy-to-carry packet of the family’s most personal records including birth certificates and ID cards. 

Forethought and preparation

Yangon’s people are industrious. There is no reason to walk around afraid that an earthquake will strike. Most earthquakes are small and do not cause serious damage or loss of life. But a big one can create a major disaster.

You will sleep better knowing you have thought about earthquakes and how to respond should one strike.

The earthquake threat in California is little different from that posed by the Sagaing fault line that slices north to south through the middle of Myanmar.

Earthquakes hit California and Myanmar every day, but while most do not cause damage or loss of life, experts say the day will come when big quakes will cause major disasters and loss of life.

Governments must prepare for that day now.

The key to surviving an earthquake and reducing the risk of death or injury lies in identifying potential quake areas, establishing proper building code and putting in place comprehensive disaster response plans that involve families, schools, government agencies and the police and military.

Myanmar is well on its way to understanding the threat of earthquakes and preparing the people and the government to respond appropriately.

During a major earthquake, you may hear a roaring or rumbling sound that gradually grows louder. You may feel a rolling sensation that starts out gently and, within a few seconds, grows violent, or you may first be jarred by a violent jolt. A second or two later, you may feel shaking and find it difficult to stand up or move from one room to another.

California’s San Andreas fault line

Myanmar can learn about earthquakes from California, which recorded 512 earthquakes in the past month, ranging from a high of 4.2 on the Richter scale. The Richter scale, developed in the 1930s, is a base -10 logarithmic scale, which defines strength of a quake’s magnitude.

Earthquakes are usually caused when rock underground suddenly breaks along a fault line. When two blocks of rock or two plates are rubbing against each other, they stick a little, causing seismic waves, which shake the ground. During the earthquake and afterward, the plates or blocks of rock start moving, and they continue to move until they get stuck again.

The spot underground where the rock breaks is called the focus of the earthquake. The location directly above the focus (on top of the ground) is called the epicenter of the quake.

California’s San Andreas Fault (SAF) runs about 700 miles along California in a north to south direction, passing near San Francisco and Los Angeles. It shares tectonic plate characteristics with the Sagaing Fault.

The strongest SAF quake recently was magnitude 7.3, in 1992, centered in Lander, about 130 miles east of Los Angeles. Three people died and 400 were injured, a testament to California’s high level of preparedness and the advanced building codes which offer greater quake protection. Experts say “The Next Big One” could occur any day.

Sagaing faultline and history

Myanmar has had 24 earthquakes in the past year. Most were in the magnitude 4.5 range or lower.

In 2011, a 6.9 magnitude quake was centered in eastern Shan State. The death toll was estimated at around 80 people, and the US Geological Survey's population exposure data estimated final damage from the earthquake was most likely to be slightly under $100 million.

In 2012, the Shwebo 6.8 magnitude quake, caused by the Sagaing Fault, struck an area about 100 km north of Mandalay. An estimated 26 people died and significant damage occurred.

The Sagaing Fault is a major fault in running north to south. It passes through populated cities of Mandalay, Yamethin, Pyinmana, the capital, Naypyidaw, Toungoo and Pegu before dropping off into the Gulf of Martaban, over 1200 kilometers distance.

The fault ruptured in 1930, causing a magnitude 7.3 quake and likely a tsunami at Bago, causing more than 500 deaths.

Myanmar’s biggest earthquake, measuring 8.2 on the Richter scale, took place in 1912 along the Kyauk Kyan Fault in northern Shan State, another of the country’s main faults (the third is the Rakhine Fault).

The Kyauk Kyan fault is 800 kilometres long, stretching from Shan State to southern Kayah State.

Myanmar preparedness

"There have been earthquakes in the past, but the impact was not substantial in areas that were sparsely populated, but if a big earthquake happened to a big city, that would be very devastating because they are not very prepared," says Peer nan Towashiraporn, a senior project manager and earthquake expert at the Asia Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) in Bangkok, citing poor building construction quality, building types, materials, and construction methods.

Cities are growing and the risks are increasing.

Among predictions of imminent Myanmar earthquakes is a study by researchers in Japan, who warn that an earthquake with a magnitude of up to 7.9 could shake central Myanmar, near the newly-built capital, Nay Pyi Taw, at any time.

"But I'm not worried about the new capital, as the buildings there were well built," said Soe Thura Tun, secretary of the Myanmar Earthquake Committee.

Tun told the Irin humanitarian news website he’s more concerned about the nearly 5 million inhabitants of Yangon, who mostly reside in old buildings constructed in a zone considered to have strong seismic potential. The Sagaing Fault, the Dedaye Fault and the Western Bago Yoma Fault are all close by the former capital.

In February, earthquake experts met in Yangon to discuss plans to prepare for the day when an earthquake will strike the city. The project will include a “hazard map” that identifies neighbourhoods believed to be at greatest risk.

Bijay Karmacharya, head of agency at the United Nations Human Settlements Programme – said that preparations for an earthquake were urgently needed in Yangon, whose population has increased 10-fold in the past 80 years.

Five hundred people died in a magnitude 7.0 earthquake in 1930 in Bago Region, he said, and 50 died in Yangon but at the time the city’s population was just 400,000.

“Yangon’s population is now more than 5 million and the city is undergoing rapid transformation. An earthquake now would have a significant impact,” he said.

U Myo Thant, a lecturer at Yangon University and secretary of the hazard section of the Myanmar Earthquake Committee, told the Myanmar Times the project would identify seismic sources, and calculate seismic hazards. “The result will be maps showing active faults, engineering considerations, liquefaction potential and earthquake potential,” he said.

As a member of the Myanmar Earthquake Committee, Tun said the hazard and risk maps are essential to disaster risk reduction.

“With hazard and risk maps, the government knows where the priority areas for hazard management are and the maps will prepare the city for earthquake disasters,” he said.

Based on the information, appropriate building codes can be put in place and officials can identify open areas where people can gather safely.

Yangon lies close to the Sagaing Fault, the most active fault in the country.

The 18-month project was supported by UN-Habitat – through the Myanmar Consortium for Community Resilience, under the European Commission Humanitarian Aid department’s Disaster Preparedness Programme – and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Women have been consistently excluded from Myanmar’s peace negotiations and their continued absence could undermine the success of the talks aimed at ending long-running ethnic conflicts that have displaced more than half a million people, women’s rights activists say. 

The exclusion at talks of representatives of more than half of Myanmar’s population is particularly egregious given that women have suffered disproportionately in the wars that have raged in the country’s borderlands for more than half a century.

Rape and sexual violence, especially of ethnic women and girls, are rampant and well-documented, and human rights groups have accused the Myanmar army of committing abuses with impunity in conflict zones.

“The long-term impact of conflicts are on women,” Nang Raw Zakhung, a female activist from conflict-torn Kachin state told Myanmar Now. 

“Even if it is the men who die or are wounded in the conflict, it’s the women - wives and mothers - who have to look after the rest of the family,” added Zakhung, assistant director of Shalom (Nyein) Foundation and one of the few women who have been involved in the peace process in her role as technical advisor to the coordinating team set up by ethnic armed groups. 

The nationwide peace process, underway since 2011, has been wholly male-dominated with women barely visible, despite a rhetoric of inclusiveness. 

With two weeks to go before the start of a landmark national conference on peace, female politicians and women’s rights activists are voicing concern that the exclusion of women would undermine prospects for long-term peace.

Among two major government committees that negotiated the ceasefire from 2011 to 2015 - the 52-member Union Peace-making Working Committee (UPWC) and the 11-member Union Peace-making Central Committee (UPCC) - there were only two women, according to the Alliance for Gender Inclusion in the Peace Process (AGIPP). Both were in the UPWC. 

One of the women, Kachin lawmaker Doi Bu, told the audience at an event on women and peace on Dec. 17 that her participation was in “name only”.

“We did not get the opportunity to really air our concerns…. And even when we did, we were only given five minutes to talk about gender issues,” she said. “We were always being told, “This is a discussion on war, so women should not be involved”.”

Women were also poorly represented among the ethnic armed groups negotiators, with just two women included, one of them Naw Zipporah Sein, Vice-President of the Karen National Union.

LEAN IN?

On Oct. 15, the Myanmar government and eight ethnic armed groups, including the Karen National Union, signed the so-called Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement amid much fanfare. 

But the deal fell short of its nationwide billing given that seven other groups, including the powerful Kachin Independence Army and United Wa State Army, declined to sign as the government refused to include several smaller groups in the deal. 

The three new committees set up to implement the NCA and continue the peace process has a grand total of three women out of 96 confirmed members, said AGIPP. 

One represents a political party and two are from ethnic armed groups. None are from the government. 

Myanmar’s peace agreement would be fairer and more sustainable with women’s participation, said Nan NanNwe, general secretary (2) of the Pa-O National Liberation Organisation, one of the signatories of the NCA. 

Yet attempts to adopt a gender quota into the nationwide ceasefire talks failed. Currently, the agreement only says there should be “a reasonable number” of women representatives. 

Such vague and subjective wording offers no guarantees for women’s meaningful participation in the peace processes and contravenes Myanmar’s obligations under international laws, say women’s rights groups. 

“As we are the ones who suffer the consequences of it, we are also the ones who wrack our brains to think about achieving peace. That’s why women’s strengths, views and approval should be sought,” Zakhung said at the Dec. 17 event organised by the Swedish embassy and AGIPP. 

The lack of women at the negotiating table is symptomatic of entrenched patriarchal attitudes in Myanmar. Despite the popularity of Aung San Suu Kyi, who led her National League for Democracy to a landslide victory in the Nov. 8 elections, the country remains socially conservative, with relatively few women in leadership roles.

PEACE CONFERENCE

The President’s Office announced last week that the Union Peace Conference will be held on Jan. 12, 2016. It will be attended by 700 delegates from the government, parliament, military, political parties, ethnic armed groups, ethnic leaders and other “appropriate” individuals, according to media reports.

Some have questioned the speed and manner in which the outgoing administration is pushing through the peace process, but the key issue for women’s rights activists is how many women will be invited to attend.   

They worry that if women are poorly represented in the conference, it could set a standard and make it harder for women to participate in the future. 

“We are concerned because the date of the conference is getting close. If anyone asks, we tell them there are these competent women, but then they always say, ‘Would they really want to do it? Can they give time?’ It’s like they’re looking for excuses,” said Zakhung. 

“Looking at what’s happening to the new Union-level committees where there are very few women, there’s a strong chance the same thing would happen again at the conference. We need to work on (changing) that,” she said.

AGIPP is calling for a minimum 30 percent quota of women to be included in the political dialogue, the next step of the peace process. It also says the 30 percent quota should be seen as a starting point, rather than a ceiling. 

Thu Wai, vice-chair of the 45-member Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee (UPDJC), told local media on Dec. 20 that he supported the 30 percent quota for women attendees at the conference. 

“We will try to include as many women as possible. If there are women who are really competent, of course we will include them,” he said. 

Zakhung, also one of the founding members of AGIPP, however, said determining “competence” is a subjective issue. 

“How do you measure competence? Is it based on academic qualification, how many years you’ve been in politics, or how familiar are you with the topics that will be discussed at the conference?” she told Myanmar Now.

A MAN’S WORLD

For AGIPP, the low participation of women in the peace process is “indicative of the parlous status of women in Myanmar”. 

Women’s participation in the public sphere in Myanmar is still limited, and female politicians regularly face ridicule, intimidation and harassment, ranging from husbands and family members who feel women do not belong in politics to smears and personal attacks by other politicians or the media.

There are currently only two female ministers at the union level, and less than 5 percent of Myanmar’s parliament members are women. This will increase to 12 percent in the new parliament which convenes at the end of January. 

Doi Bu, the Kachin parliamentarian and member of the UPWC, said her male colleagues would constantly make excuses for women to be left out of the peace process, a reflection of the wider discrimination against women in Myanmar.

“The (men) regularly told me the roads are so bad and it’s not easy for women to travel to these places where the talks (with the ethnic groups) were held. I told them that my own constituency is very far and remote and I go there,” she said last week. 

Doi Bu had some advice for women politicians and activists: “Please don’t wait to be called. We have to push for it ourselves.”

If a major earthquake hits and you are living in a bamboo hut, chances are you will come out unscathed. But if you are in a concrete house or office, the potential danger is greater. 

This is the reality today for Myanmar as it chases its mantra of growth and development. As earthquake experts and disaster risk consultants note, the growth of cities can have its downside if a quake strikes. Construction techniques for houses, high-rises, and for infrastructure including bridges and dams, needs to take into account Myanmar’s earthquake threat.

As Jaiganesh Murugesan, Disaster Risk Reduction Specialist at the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, explains, it is hard to predict when the next serious earthquake will strike Myanmar. But the danger is real and the country is not effectively prepared, both in terms of infrastructure standards and in the necessary drills on how to react.

“Myanmar has not had any major damaging earthquake since the middle of the 19th Century when a quake of 7 on the Richter scale struck,” Mr Murugesan said. “While the majority of the country is prone to earthquakes, experts note that there are seismic gaps along the Sagaing fault where one can expect the next potential earthquake in the range of (7 or 7.5 on the Richter Scale). However, it also depends on the return period. Experts say the return period of an earthquake along the Sagaing fault varies between 80-160 years and on average 100 years after an earthquake.”

Even seismologists are unable to predict when the next “big one” will strike.

“An earthquake can happen early on or even later than that as earthquakes cannot be predicted, but they estimate based on studies,” Mr Murugesan from UN-Habitat. The organisation has undertaken earthquake risk assessments for a number of major cities in Myanmar as well as a seismic hazard assessment in Yangon in collaboration with various partners, under the European Commission-funded Myanmar Consortium for Community Resilience (MCCR).

Concern has been voiced that quakes of five or more on the Richter scale could have a devastating effect on infrastructure, particularly in cities where building standards may be slack or when it comes to old buildings, like many in Yangon built well over half a century ago.

As Mr Murugesan says it is important to bear in mind that in the past the population levels were lower and many people used to live in houses made of bamboo.

Things have changed. “We have big cities along the Sagaing fault and a major earthquake along the fault that can cause severe damage and destruction,” he said.

Census data over the last 40 years or more shows population density in Yangon has increased 2.5 times and Mandalay has seen a doubling of growth.

This means the population is in a state of “high exposure” should a serious quake hit.

Mr Murugesan says the concerns lie in other cities such as Yangon and Mandalay. City development committees have bylaws for building construction in cities, enacted after 2012.

“Looking at the current system, earthquake resistant designs are reviewed only for buildings taller than three stories and specific high-rise buildings have to be approved by the Committee for Quality Control of High Rise Buildings. However, one cannot make any specific guess on what is actually on the ground, as many of the low-rise buildings are built without the support of engineers or supervision of engineers, while also not taking into account the earthquake risk,” he said.

Homes built in say the UK or United States are subject to tough building standards. But many houses in Myanmar are built without careful standards or checks.

“Even if they have considered the earthquake design based on the available information, with the availability of new information, the seismic zones have changed considerably. So the building is not designed to the latest requirements,” Mr Murugesan said.

Building construction is not the only cause for concern. Worries have been voiced over such structures as hydropower dams that could be prone to serious damage in the event of a major earthquake. 

The Myitsone Dam project, for example, was put on hold by President Thein Sein in 2011 over humanitarian and environmental concerns.  Yet the fear over earthquakes is one of the drivers of an ongoing call by NGOs to the new government, when it comes in, to not renew the project.

China Power Investment Corporation, the main contractor and financial backer, expects the project to recommence after President Thein Sein’s tenure finishes. The company claims the dam would be built using modern construction standards and would be safe.

The NGO International Rivers has warned of the dangers of building large dams in earthquake-prone areas of Myanmar, particularly the Myitsone Dam and planned dams on the Thanlwin or Salween River.

“If the Myitsone Dam were to break during an earthquake, it would endanger the lives of hundreds of thousands of people by flooding Kachin State's largest city, Myitkyina,” according to the NGO.

How Myanmar’s new government will handle the case of the Myitsone Dam is unclear. While plans for dams continue on the Salween River, this dam has been subject to heated opposition and debate.

In the heart of Myanmar’s central dry zone there are two protected forest areas that are home to word’s largest populations of endangered Eld’s deer.  

Chatthin in Sagaing Region and Shwesettaw in Magwe Region are two long-established wildlife sanctuaries with a rare type of dry forests where the species - called rucervuseldii or ‘Golden Deer’ in Burmese - lives. But during a recent visit to Chatthin I learned that the forest and its species are under threat from poaching and encroachment, while authorities struggle to stave off the sanctuary’s decline.

“We used to patrol around when we heard gunshots and would arrest the hunters. However, they are now using traps made of steel wires. So we cannot hear any sound when the deer hunting is going on and cannot make arrests,” Win ZawLun, a forestry officer at Chattin Sanctuary, told me.

“Locals trap and kill the deer for a small amount of money. They do not have the knowledge to understand that killing these rare animals is a great loss,” he said. Win ZawLun explained that the roughly $80 villagers can earn from capturing a Golden Deer represents a large sum compared to the few dollars per day they receive from doing farm work.

Chatthin was established in 1941 and covers roughly 103 square miles and parts of Kantbalu and Kawlin townships. The sanctuary employs 34 staff and is reached by a bumpy two-hour motorbike ride from Chatthin town.

A large picture of a pair of Eld’s Deer welcomes visitors at the gate and a small museum showcases some stuffed versions of the roughly 1,500 species of wildlife in the park, including monkeys, birds, various deer, wild pig, wild dog and a number of unique insects.

Its forests are dominated indaing (dipterocarpus) plants, as well as teak and other hardwood trees.

This makes for an ideal habitat for Eld’s deer, said Myint Myint Soe, a forestry officer at the sanctuary.

“Foreign experts said Chatthin Wildlife Sanctuary is a more suitable habitat for Golden Deer than its counterpart Shwesettaw in Magwe Region, although the latter has more deer,” she said. “The number of this endangered species is declining faster in Chatthin.”

According to official figures, the number of deer in the park fell an estimated 50 percent since 1995, when there were thought to be some 3,000 animals in Chatthin.

The decline mirrors a wider loss of forests and wildlife habitats across Myanmar that has gathered pace since the country’s political opening up began in 2011. A report published in March 2015 said that forest conversion for commercial agriculture is accelerating at an “unprecedented rate” in Myanmar, putting the country’s biodiversity at risk.

During my visit, I joined park officials and we searched for the shy deer, but all we could see was a few hoof marks and a brief rustling of bushes where they were believed to be hiding.  

Three villages are located inside the sanctuary and some 20 villages straddle its edges. For many locals in this impoverished area the forest and its resources are an essential source of income that supplements their farm work.

Villagers are aware of its protected status but have traditionally collected firewood, bamboo shoots and other food and non-food forest products in Chatthin. Some will sneak in to poach its wildlife with home-made guns or traps.

Officials told me that during my visit a patrol had just found three women digging for the roots of wild palm trees and let them off with a warning. The edible roots are sought after in China and fetch about $1 per 2.5 kilo on the local market.

Authorities said they lack funding to carry out programmes to educate villagers on the importance of conservation, or to provide them with alternative sources of income. The laws for protecting the sanctuary do not stipulate clear penalties for those breaching its rules, so criminal laws are sometimes used against poachers, a measure that park officials say is too severe.

“We conduct educational programmes, asking them to surrender their handmade guns while pardoning them from holding these weapons. However, police insist on taking action against illegal possession of these weapons. Such procedures makes the locals reluctant to hand over their guns,” said Myint Myint Soe.

She said more emphasis should be put on fostering understanding of Chatthin's unique ecological value among locals, while further cooperation with authorities and alternative livelihood programmes should also be supported.

Myint Myint Soe said conservation programmes with such a focus would offer the best way of protecting Chattin’s natural heritage, but this would require more funding.

Having seen the Chattin sanctuary and the role it plays as important refuge for the Eld’s deer, I can only agree and hope that Myanmar’s government or international conservation organisations can protect it for future generations.

Every good Boy Scout learns – be prepared. The lesson holds true for earthquakes in Myanmar.

As Mizzima pointed out in an earlier story about family preparedness for earthquakes (see here), there is a list of things to do and routines to follow before and during an earthquake.

In addition, geology, building codes, home safety and personal preparedness all play a role in helping minimize deaths or injuries, and the level and cost of overall earthquake damage.

What can you do?

Awareness and knowing what to do are important when an earthquake strikes.

But what can you do on a practical level to make sure your home and family are safe in terms of the location and construction of the building you live in, and the way you have distributed furniture and other items within a home or workplace?

After all – quakes don't kill, unsafe buildings and unsecured furniture pose the main threats, as has been proved again and again.

So what do you need to do specifically on a practical level?

Minimizing earthquake risk is possible in a new building by designing and constructing it with earthquake resistant features.

Depending on when and how your home was designed and built, the structure may have weaknesses that make it more vulnerable to earthquakes.

It is important to minimize earthquake risk both by structural measures and non-structural measures. Structural measures entail retrofitting, that is modifying existing structures to handle seismic activity, and also ensuring new constructions are designed to with stand earthquakes in compliance with the building code.

Non-structural measures include reducing the risk of falling hazards inside the home, and developing a family preparedness plan.

Common examples of structural issues that can increase a building’s vulnerability to disaster include structures not securely anchored to their foundation or having weak studs and joists, unbraced pier-and-post foundations, or unreinforced masonry walls. Windows that are too wide, and roofs that are heavier than necessary also weaken the ability of a structure to withstand seismic shockwaves. Irregular-shaped structures that lack symmetry can also be at more risk of collapse.

Using lightweight materials that can bend without breaking can help make buildings more shock absorbent.

If you’re building a new structure, always use qualified architects, builders and engineers to design the structure. For an existing building, you can ask the same people to inspect your building and recommend upgrades, which are always far cheaper than having to repair or replace a seriously damaged structure after a powerful quake.

You can also assess the safety and structural integrity of an existing building and undertake modifications as required to improve its ability to withstand disasters. You always have an option of extending the retrofitting over a period of time. You don’t have to do it all at once; the important point is to get retrofitting done, if needed, before a quake occurs.

Some geological considerations

If considering a new structure for a home or business, give thought to the site’s location and the geology and geography of the area.

With the support of international nongovernmental agencies and technical bodies such as the Myanmar Engineering Society, Myanmar Geosciences Society and Myanmar Earthquake Committee, a number of seismic and earthquake risk maps have been developed which identify the location of quake fault lines and the types of soils in different areas. These maps – available through the national and region/state government – can be used to help identify safer locations for new constructions.

If you can avoid it, never build directly over, or too close to,a quake fault line, where quakes will be most intense. Ground shock waves cause 99 percent of earthquake damage to structures. Areas near large, active faults will be shaken more severely than areas even a slight distance away.

Solid rock near the surface that is well removed from a geological fault line offers the best building site for quake protection. Deep and unbroken rock, referred to as bedrock, generally will minimize earthquake damage whereas deep, soft, sedimentary soils will result in a more seismic force and displacement, causing the ground to move.

Landslides

In a mountainous country such as Myanmar, earthquakes can often trigger landslides, ripping apart homes on a slope or crushing homes downhill beneath displaced earth, falling rocks, trees, and other debris that could be loosened by earthquakes. Sites where landslides are most likely to occur should be avoided.

Lateral spreading of soil

Intense shaking during an earthquake can cause soil to separate into large blocks that move apart from each other, causing damage to the foundation of a house.During earthquakes, loose, wet sandy soil can become almost like quicksand and lose its ability to support structures, causing the foundation of a house to sink, break or tilt. Some soils offer greater “liquefaction,” or slide,than other types, and can cause more shaking and stress during quakes, which will result in loss of vertical support for the house or building.

The foundation of a home or business is literally the link between the structure and the ground. A well-built foundation is the first line of defense against damage to a structure.

Building codes are important

The Myanmar National Building Code, enacted in 2012, is now in the process of being rewritten to upgrade safety standards and to cover high-rise building construction. The new code will soon be submitted to Parliament for approval, but many architects and builders have already begun to implement some of its recommendations. When the code is approved,architects and building contractors across the country will have to conform to the new standards, offering more protection in quake-prone areas.

With this in mind, learn what the new building code contains to help you decide if you should perform retrofitting on a structure.

In collaboration with national technical partners, UN-Habitat has undertaken earthquake risk assessments for Sagaing city in Sagaing Region and Bago city and Taungoo city in Bago Region, drafting maps showing the most at-risk areas. The survey and maps have been provided to the respective regional governments.A seismic hazard assessment for Yangon city and an earthquake risk assessment have also recently been completed. As more such maps are created, local governments in the most earthquake-prone areas can consider the risks and needs when developing urban plans, creating industrial zones and building power projects.

U Myo Thant, a lecturer at Yangon University and secretary of the hazards section of the Myanmar Earthquake Committee, says the ongoing project would identify seismic sources, estimate source parameters and calculate seismic hazards to affected areas.

“The result will be maps showing active faults, engineering considerations, liquefaction [of soil] potential and earthquake potential,” he said. Knowing about earthquake faults and building stronger buildings goes a long way to reducing damage, injury and loss of life.

Make your home or business as safe as possible

If you are not able to make large-scale structural modifications to your home, there are still a number of things you can do to help reduce the risk posed by earthquakes. Firstly, it is important to identify the safe locations in each room or your home or business to protect yourself and others. Experts say around 30 to 50 percent of earthquake-related injuries are caused by falling objects or by furniture and other heavy items toppling over or sliding into people.

Any unsecured objects that can move, break, or fall as an earthquake shakes your home are potential safety hazards. Put all heavy items on lower shelves or on the ground.

Walk through each room and make note of such items, paying particular attention to tall, heavy, or expensive objects such as bookcases, home electronics, appliances (including water heaters), and items hanging from walls or ceilings.

Secure the items with flexible fasteners, such as nylon straps or with fixed hooks, to walls, lower shelves, or to cabinets with latches.

Other tips to arrange and secure furniture in your home to reduce the chance of injury:

– Fix items to sturdy walls or to the ground (Securing furniture such as cupboards to nearby walls top revent furniture such as tables and chair legs from sliding)
– Use stabilizing devices such as chains for fixing hanging lightings or other hanging materials to the ceiling to reduce falling hazards
– Install or use anti-shatter glass film on windows.
– Use metal straps to fasten your water heater or air conditioner to a stud in a wall.

Think about fire safety

Fire is a secondary hazard which may occur during or immediately after an earthquake as a result of ruptures in gas and electricity supply lines.  To help minimize the risk of fires in your home, remove all flammable liquids, such as painting and cleaning products, to an outside storage area. Don’t store flammable items near heat sources and appliances, particularly a water heater or furnace.

Secure gas lines by installing flexible connectors to appliances.

For earthquake preparedness, you must consider the big picture: geology, geography, how a structure is built, how you have arranged the furniture and other items in terms of safety, and – finally – how you respond upon the first signs of an earthquake.

Myanmar is exposed to a number of natural disasters and has a World Risk Index Ranking of 42/173 and Global Climate Risk Index of 2/178. GCR ranked Myanmar for the period 1995-2014 alongside Honduras and Haiti as the countries with the highest risk.

A crucial area in which steps are being taking to prepare is the threat posed by earthquakes. Such efforts in earthquake preparedness and messaging are crucial for Myanmar given the ever-present dangers posed by quakes.

Just weeks ago, there was a timely reminder when an earthquake hit 35 miles northwest of Monywa, Sagaing Region, affecting Kani, on November 27.

According to seismologist Soe Thura Tun: “An earthquake measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale hit. There is a big fault under the western mountain range. Small and moderate earthquakes occur regularly. The Chin Mountains, Monywa and western areas of Sagaing Region experience earthquakes annually."

No casualties were recorded, but Aung Tun Toe, deputy township administrator in Kani said: “Many pagodas were damaged, but we are still collecting data. No buildings collapsed."

That said, however, pagodas on the Shwe Myin Phyu Mountain either collapsed or suffered damage and three pagodas in Maung Htaung village in Butalin also collapsed.

The effect was most severe in Kani where buildings were not structurally strong enough, according to the Myanmar Earthquake Committee.

Earthquakes pose a hazard for many locations throughout the country as Myanmar is located on one of the two main earthquake belts in the world. During the 20th Century, at least, 18 serious earthquakes occurred along the Central Lowland in Myanmar where the Sagaing Fault passes.

Areas most vulnerable to earthquakes are Bago-Phyu, Mandalay-Sagaing-Tagaung, Putao-Tanaing, and Kale-Homalin. Important cities that lie in these areas are Taungoo, Taungdwingyi, Bagan-Nyaung-U, Kyaukse, Pyin Oo Lwin, Shwebo, Wuntho, Hkamti, Haka, Myitkyina, Taunggyi, and Kunglong.

In addition, coastal regions, particularly Rakhine State and the Ayeyarwady Delta Region, are also at high risk from cyclones, storm surges and tsunamis. Much of the country is also exposed to flooding and landslides during the rainy season in addition to drought and fire during the dry season.

With long-awaited political changes and a civil society in need of access to funding, capacity building and technical training, it is extremely important for international donors to invest in disaster preparedness and climate change adaptation in the country.

Sub-standard infrastructure and poor housing conditions contribute to Myanmar’s susceptibility. High casualties and economic loss are often related to the fall of non-engineered structures, it is essential therefore that the government implement new measures to ensure structural compliance with a view to ensuring new buildings are able to withstand future disasters, whether due to quakes, flooding or cyclones.

To help combat future problems, in 2012, the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) supported the development of the Disaster Management Law that passed in August 2013 as well as the Disaster Management Rules which were finalized in April this year.

According to the Disaster Management Law, the Government has established the National Disaster Management Committee (NDMC), the highest decision-making body for disaster management.  The NDMC is chaired by Vice President II and the Minister of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement and the Minister of Home Affairs are the Vice-Chairs. Depending on the emergency Working Committees and Sub-Committees will be constituted and OCHA is supporting the government in linking these sub-committees with humanitarian coordination mechanisms.

Efforts are being made by to support awareness and training to help the Myanmar public in the case of a serious earthquake. One particular project is supported by UN-Habitat – through the Myanmar Consortium for Community Resilience, under the European Commission Humanitarian Aid department’s Disaster Preparedness Programme – and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

As Myanmar progresses politically, it is hoped there will be further continued efforts to address the threats posed by natural disasters.  

Sources: Give 2 Asia, earthquake track, earthquake report, UNOCHA

Than Htwe lives in Hlaing Tharyar, a sprawling township 20 km west of central Yangon, but his job is in downtown. Every morning he wakes up in the early hours, quickly downs a cup of tea and rushes to the bus stop at 6:30 just so he can get to his workplace by 9 o’clock.

He meets his fellow commuters - men and women, young and old - already sweating in the packed bus and gearing themselves up physically and mentally for the gruelling daily journey.

“It used to take only an hour and a half each way to get to and from work. Now I’m having to spend about six hours every day,” Than Htwe said. “I can only get home at 10 at night. There’s no time to rest properly, I just spend my time on the bus.”

Kay Thi Tun, a sales clerk in a clothes store in downtown, spends at least four hours each day on the bus from her home in the North Dagon outskirts. “If I don’t get to the store before it opens, money is docked from my salary,” she said.

Than Htwe and Kay Thi Tun are among the millions of commuters who find themselves spending hours on Yangon’s old and overburdened public transport system every day, a routine that takes its toll on the health, well-being and income of the city’s residents.

Without an efficient mass transport system like those in other cities in the region such as Singapore, many Yangon commuters have to rely on old Japanese and Chinese buses that are notorious for overcrowding, rude conductors, and for women, sexual harassment.

And the situation is only getting worse.

LIBERALISING CAR IMPORTS

When Myanmar’s military-backed civilian government took power in March 2011, one of its first reform measures was to liberalise the import of automobiles, a sector that had been monopolised by a handful of businessmen with close links to the ruling establishment. The move caused car prices, which for years were exceptionally high, to plummet. Car showrooms popped up on almost every corner and new vehicles flooded the streets.

Four years later, Yangon, the country’s commercial capital, now rivals neighbouring capitals such as Bangkok, Jakarta and Manila in the dubious honour of having some of the worst traffic jams in Southeast Asia, while lacking a mass rapid transport system.

The government has been playing catch-up ever since, enlisting the assistance of foreign donors to build bridges and flyovers, and to improve traffic management systems.

Experts, however, say a holistic approach is needed - and urgently - to solve Yangon’s ever-worsening traffic problem.

“In order to mitigate the traffic situation, (authorities) need to do a number of things. What is needed is a combination of hard and soft measures,” said Sanjo Akihito, a senior representative of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) office in Yangon, which has worked with authorities to develop a master plan to overhaul the city’s transport system.

These measures could include building new roads and mass rapid transport systems, as well as ensuring that existing laws and regulations are respected, Akihito said. Traffic signals should also be part of an integrated system to better manage the traffic flow, which is not the case at the moment.

“Subway could be one of the components, but that is not the only solution. It should be combined with other solutions, including other mass rapid transport systems, as well as looking at things like (preventing) illegal parking,” he said.

 SIX TIMES MORE TAXIS THAN NEW YORK

The situation is urgent as Yangon has more than doubled the number of vehicles on its roads in the past four years, according to KyawSoe, a Yangon Region minister for forestry and energy and a spokesman for the Yangon Regional government.

By October 2015, there were more than 500,000 vehicles in Yangon, compared to 214,000 in August 2011, according to Yangon Region government figures.

There are 349 bus lines currently serving around 7 million people in Yangon Region, and each bus carries between 4,500 to 4,900 passengers a day, figures from Mahtatha (the control committee for private bus lines) show.

The Mahtatha also estimates there are now 100,000 taxis in Yangon, representing a fifth of all cars on its roads. In comparison, New York City, home to 8 million people and a global financial centre, has fewer than 14,000 licensed taxis.

“The (lifting of import restrictions) was done so that middle class families could also afford cars, the whole country can afford cars now. But Yangon is the place where the largest number of cars have been imported so we are experiencing traffic problems,” KyawSoe told a news conference on the congestion issue on Dec. 9.

Mayangone Township Deputy Traffic Police Officer Win Naing told the same news conference that drivers’ lack of respect for traffic rules exacerbates congestion, adding that more road space needs to be created. “If the road already has all the cars it can take, there’s just no way can we solve this with only human resources. You need engineering solutions,” he said.

HEALTH COSTS

Long hours spent commuting on overcrowded buses can be detrimental to the health and well-being of city residents, according to Dr. Aung Soe Win, a medical consultant to private companies in Yangon. Passengers can suffer from stress, disruptions to eating patterns, insufficient air circulation, carbon monoxide gases and dirty surroundings, he said.

“Some women feel worried about possible sexual harassment on public buses, and people have to spend their precious time amid traffic congestion,” he added.

Figures from the Thai capital Bangkok offer an indication of the health costs of traffic congestion. According to a U.S. Environmental Information Administration report from 2001, airborne particle matter was estimated to have caused 3,300 premature deaths and almost 17,000 hospital admissions in Bangkok at a total health care cost of up to US $6.3 billion.

Ko Aung, a bus driver from Line 39, said the strain of long, congested journeys has made drivers feel exhausted and irritable.

“Traffic congestion made us ill-tempered and we then break traffic rules. We feel more tired at the end of each working day compared with the situation five years ago. So we go to bars for a drink afterwards. This lifestyle has negative impacts on your health,” he said.

Zaw Min, a taxi driver, said the effects of traffic congestion go beyond health complaints and stress, as for taxis it has also meant a fall in income.

“We cannot ask more taxi fees from the potential passengers because of the traffic congestion. We now have to take about two hours to reach destination for a route that would take only 20 minutes some years ago,” he said.

A LACK OF SOLUTIONS

A major challenge in dealing with traffic congestion is a lack of government funds to find traffic and infrastructure solutions, said KyawSoe, the Yangon Region minister.

He said four fly-over bridges have been constructed so far and three more are underway in Yangon. “The congestion has eased because of these fly-over bridges but has not been totally solved,” he said, adding that new projects such as by-passes may be implemented in the future.

When authorities in Yangon attempted to start a boat ferry project along the Hlaing River to divert traffic in the western part of the city, the scheme fell through as few people used the boats.

Than Htay, head of the Department of Engineering at Yangon City Development Committee, said an offer has been made to companies for a project to supervise a traffic light system that could improve flows.

However, experts say Yangon should look at how other cities, especially those in Southeast Asia, have tried to solve this problem. There, solutions range from underground and overground trains to motorcycle taxis, bus-only lanes, congestion charges in downtown areas, and park-and-ride systems.

Bangkok, which struggled with traffic problems in the 1990s, launched its skytrain system in 1999 and a metro in 2004. It also allowed for licensed motorcycle taxis, a solution Yangon cannot yet implement as motorcycles are banned.

In Jakarta, the government implemented controls on motor vehicle ownership, increasing the tax of vehicles and fuel, while also improving the train system and designating special bus lanes.

A BETTER PUBLIC TRANSPORT SYSTEM

Other solutions that JICA has proposed include operating a bus rapid transit system (BRT), installing cameras at traffic points and upgrading the local railway system. A BRT is a system to speed up buses by giving them a dedicated lane. A number of bus stops have been built for the BRT system which is expected to run beginning this year.

“You have to get people out of private cars and into different transport modes: buses, bicycle, walking, subway, light rail,” said Akihito, the JICA representative. “That’s what Yangon really needs to be focusing on because you cannot just keep building roads and squeezing cars in.”

MyatNyanaSoe, a Yangon Region MP for the National League for Democracy which will form a government next month after winning the Nov. 8 general election, said improving the city’s public transport system should be a priority.

“Even though Yangon has a circular railway for example, few people rely on it because it is not efficient,” he said, referring to the decades-old, slow-moving railway that rings Yangon. He said authorities should consider developing a skytrain system like that of Bangkok.

POOR CITY PLANNING

Yet the city’s approach still seems to be focused on the construction of flyovers. Currently, they are being constructed at four major intersections, leading to severe bottlenecks in and out of the city.

A police lieutenant colonel from Yangon Traffic Police Force, who declined to be named, told Myanmar Now that flyovers would not resolve underlying problems and merely offered the public an impression that something is being done. “Overpasses are appearing in Yangon at random, instead of (projects) focused on reducing traffic in one particular area,” he said.

MyatKoKo, an official with Yangon Region’s Civil Engineering Department, said many residential apartments constructed during the junta era lacked parking areas, a planning error that has contributed to congestion by increasing the number of cars parked on the streets.

“All downtown areas in Yangon need multi-level parking garages, although the six major downtown areas have no more empty plots for building construction,” he said.

Khaung Tong Creek was a 1.5-meter deep, pristine creek some 10 years ago, but these days this important tributary of Kachin State’s famed Indawgyi Lake is just a little stream some 10 cm deep, filled with red-brownish mud.

Local villagers said years of unregulated gold mining several kilometres away has caused the environmental degradation as dumped waste and chemicals has flowed into the stream.

“The water in this creek was clean when I was young, but it has turned into a muddy stream. Groups of gold miners can be found upstream of the creek. It is threatening Indawgyi Lake’s environment,” Yan Khaung, a native of the area and a local coordinator for Myanmar branch of UK-based Fauna and Flora International, told me during a recent visit to the lake in northern Myanmar.

Conservationists and local villagers said the country’s largest lake is under threat from a gold mining free-for-all in the area, which - as at so many mining sites in Myanmar - has been come with heavy environmental impacts and social problems.

The ongoing conflict between the army and ethnic rebels in Kachin state, they say, is hampering efforts to protect the lake and bring in international support for conservation of the lake.

A UNIQUE, BIODIVERSE LAKE

Yet, Indawgyi’s remoteness and lack of population pressure has left it in a much better state than Shan State’s well-known Inle Lake, where deforestation and the rapid of growth of agriculture and tourism has put a severe strain on the lake’s ecosystem.

Indawgyi’s unique features have long been recognised domestically and internationally, and in recent years efforts to protect it have gathered steam.

Fauna and Flora International (Myanmar) has been running conservation programmes around the lake since 2010 that focus on compiling the data on the bird species at Indawgyi and biodiversity issues at the area. In February 2014, Myanmar’s Ministry of Environmental Conservation and Forestry submitted a proposal with UNESCO to register Indawgyi Lake Wildlife Sanctuary as an ecological World Heritage Site.

Located in Monyin Township, Kachin State, the lake is 24 km long and 10 km wide.

Since 1999, the lake has been part of Indawgyi Lake Wildlife Sanctuary, an area covering some 736 square kilometres that encompasses large swathes of wetlands, hills and deciduous and evergreen forest that surround the lake, according to the submission available on UNESCO’s website.

It is an important bird area and a watershed that supports a number of globally threatened wildlife species.

The sanctuary, the submission says, “provides habitat for 10 globally threatened bird species and is of outstanding value for the conservation of migrating waterbirds. The White-rumped Vulture and Slender-billed Vulture have been reported,” two species that have declined dramatically in other parts of the world. 

The lake also is home to endemic species such as the Burmese Peacock Turtle and three fish species. A total of 448 bird, 41 reptile, 34 amphibian, 64 fish, and 50 butterfly species have been found, according to the submission, which notes that there could be more species as no fish survey has been conducted at the lake since 1920.

Endangered and vulnerable mammal species found around the lake include the Asian Elephant, Bengal Slow Loris, Clouded Leopard and Himalayan Black Bear.

UNDER THREAT

During my visit to Indawgyi Lake, I went to MaingNaung village, located beside Khaung Tong Creek, to find out more about the gold mining that had ravaged the stream. I saw a number of noisy bulldozers and other heavy machinery being operated near the stream, but I was unable to approach the site because a local guide warned me that visitors were not allowed to wander around these gold mining sites.

The UNESCO submission notes that the sanctuary is threatened by hydraulic and small-scale gold mining to the west of the lake, where it is “located along streams that flow into the lake. Elevated mercury levels and increased sedimentation in the lake have been documented. The regional government is considering what to do with these mines.”

According to Yan Khaung from Fauna and Flora International, mining has become an important source of income for some locals, while it also attracts impoverished migrant workers from across the region. Among the miners, he said, drug addiction is common, much like at Hpakant’s notorious jade mines.

“Many groups of miners can be found at the upstream of this (Khaung Tong) creek. Many illegal items, including narcotic drugs, can be bought there as it is a lawless area,” he said, adding that some of these groups also carry out illegal logging in the area.

The wildlife sanctuary is home to a total 39 villages, 20 of which are situated on the lake’s shores.

According to the UNESCO site, there some 35,000 people living around the lake. Most villagers are Kachin and Red Shan (also known as Taileng) ethnic minorities, who live off farming and fishing, but are not traditionally hunters.

“We do not catch the birds here, not because of official warnings but because of our regular practices. So, the birds are not afraid of humans. We also limit fishing during the fish breeding season,” said Myo Aung, who lives in Lone Ton Village on the banks of lake.

CONFLICT HINDERS CONSERVATION

Indawgyi Lake is located some 30 km away from the nearest army base and though there are some troops stationed near the lake, locals say the road to the lake runs through an area where the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) has a strong presence. The nearby mountains are under KIA control and due to a lack of security, government soldiers enforce a dusk-to-dawn curfew on local roads.

Kachin villagers said they dislike the army as it turns its suspicion on to the Kachin population any time there is a clash or incident with the KIA.

“The military is likely to assume our Kachin people have an affiliation with the KIA. Whenever any conflict happens, Kachin people are summoned for questioning,” said a Kachin villager, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution from the army. “We always have to pray that no fighting breaks out here between the KIA and the government troops.”

The unstable security situation and lack of government regulation of gold mining operations are undermining Myanmar’s bid to get Indawgyi Lake Wildlife Sanctuary listed as a Word Heritage site, said Htay Win, an officer working at the sanctuary, as UNESCO requires certain conservation measures are put in place before a site can be listed. 

The sanctuary will be reviewed this year for becoming a UNESCO-protected biosphere area under the organisation’s Man and the Biosphere Programme, which could mobilise technical support for the lake’s conservation, according to Htay Win.

“But we have many difficulties to implement development programmes due to the gold mines and armed groups. These situations are hampering our proposal to international associations in seeking recognition of Indawgyi Lake as a World Heritage site,” he said.

My visit to Indawgyi Lake made me realise that it offers a valuable lesson on the importance of improving governance of Myanmar’s rich natural heritage and how a successful peace process could help both man and nature.

The evidence comprised little more than a data table, printed on a single sheet of paper. To Jane Taupin, it didn’t seem to make sense.

“[It] had no guidance for the reader of how to interpret the table,” she said.

“What’s more, it contained handwritten notes and amendments. That is non-compliant with any international standard that I know of.”

Ms Taupin, one of the world’s foremost experts on DNA profiling, had been expecting to raise this and several other serious concerns about the handling of DNA evidence during the Koh Tao murder trial last year.

But despite flying out from Australia to Thailand to attend the hearing, she was never called to the witness stand.

Instead, the defence team relied on the testimony of Pornthip Rojanasunand, head of the Central Institute of Forensic Science, to challenge the DNA findings.

The three judges at the Samui Provincial Court found Zaw Lin and Win ZawHtun guilty of the murder of British tourists David Miller and Hannah Witheridge, sentencing the pair to death. The ruling, delivered on Christmas Eve, relied heavily on the DNA evidence put forward by prosecutors, which claimed a “100%” match and which the court agreed used methodology that was “internationally accepted”.

Yet Ms Taupin, who has worked as an internal laboratory auditor and written books on the use of forensic evidence in courtrooms, said serious doubts linger over whether that is the case.

Crime scenes, she said, are notoriously difficult to gather quality DNA samples from. Cases like the one on Koh Tao, which deal with mixed samples, are fraught with danger: complex and sometimes unreliable statistical calculations must be carried out to determine the probability that someone other than the accused could match the recovered sample.

Yet no statistical analysis was made available to the defence team or the court.

Instead, the judges were simply told by prosecution witnesses the evidence “confirmed” that DNA recovered from the crime scene belonged to the two accused, a claim Ms Taupin said is not strictly possible to make; instead, a probability ratio must be given.

“Whatever way you want to determine the statistics, they’ve got to be validated in your laboratory, and you’ve got to have them. But Thailand doesn’t have them. Not at all,” she said.

“DNA profiling is predicated on statistics, that’s the whole point. You don’t just say it’s a match — it’s not fingerprinting … You need to give significance to that match.”

A HISTORY OF DOUBT

From the moment the bodies of Miller and Witheridge were discovered on Sairee Beach on Sept 15, 2014, police found themselves under enormous pressure — both from the public and the newly self-appointed military government — to resolve the case quickly.

But the investigation was dogged from the outset by a series of very public blunders, including concerns the crime scene had not been properly secured and could have been contaminated.

It soon emerged CCTV cameras in the vicinity of the crime scene were not working, while cameras near the pier — the small island’s sole entry/exit point — were never inspected.

Thai nationals were ruled out almost immediately as suspects, and police quickly declared the island’s Myanmar migrant population was most likely responsible. They announced that DNA samples showed the perpetrators were Asian, even though DNA profiling is not able to determine race — a fact later acknowledged by police forensic experts in court.

On Sept 16, the day after the murders, 11 pieces of evidence recovered from the crime scene, along with DNA samples taken from 14 suspects, were sent to a police forensics lab for testing.

One of those pieces of evidence was the murder weapon, a garden hoe. An initial test found traces of human blood, which proved to be that of Witheridge. But no DNA was recovered.

Almost a year after that test was conducted, the hoe was retested — this time by a team led by Dr Pornthip. It found traces of DNA belonging to at least two people, but which did not match with the profiles of the accused.

A key part of the prosecution’s case was what they said was a “match” between DNA samples found on Witheridge’s body and the two defendants.

Defence lawyers had asked police to hand over the DNA samples that the police used to make this match, for independent verification, but were told there was nothing left of the evidence for retesting.

THE EVIDENCE SOMETIMES LIES

Ms Taupin blames television shows like CSI for propagating the myth DNA evidence is infallible. In reality, she said, DNA profiling relies heavily on assumptions and interpretations by individual scientists. She said studies have shown that it is possible for different labs to offer completely different findings from the same sample.

“It’s completely reliant on the subjective interpretation of the DNA analyst as to how many contributors there are. It all falls back on that,” she said. “If one analyst says there’s only one contributor, another analyst might say there are two.”

As a result, forensic scientists must be acutely aware of the potential flaws in their experiments, and also explain these potential shortcomings to the court, she said.

Ms Taupin said the whole purpose of analysing DNA profiles is not about certainty to begin with — it’s about statistical probability, something which no other branch of forensic science is able to offer.

When a crime scene sample arrives at the lab for testing, forensic scientists are forced to make informed guesses about how many people might have contributed to the mixture of DNA recovered from a piece of evidence. The more possible contributors, the harder it becomes to reasonably link the evidence to any individual person.

The scientists will not analyse entire genomes; instead they look at just a small part. How many areas are tested will differ by country, but in Thailand scientists will check for commonalities at 16 specific locations, which is considered acceptable by international standards.

At each of these 16 locations, there are many different possible genetic variations, known as alleles. Every person has two alleles at each location — one inherited from the mother and one from the father. 

A simple analogy is to picture each allele as a box containing Scrabble pieces. If a forensic scientists opens 16 boxes and finds just two letters in each of them, then they can generally assume — as long as the sample is “true” — that there was only one contributor.

While two people can share alleles at individual locations, the odds of them sharing the same values at all 16 points are impossibly small. If testing found matches at 17 locations, the probability that it would be another person is one in 10 billion, according to Ms Taupin.

“Nevertheless, you can’t prove identity, you can only give a statistic. And there’s a lot of steps to get to that point,” she said. “And if you’ve got a mixture of more than one person, the statistics are commensurately different, because there’s different combinations that can give that.”

In the Koh Tao case, the most compelling DNA evidence was that recovered from semen sampled from Witheridge’s body, which contained at least three people’s DNA — the victim and what police said were the two accused. Yet Ms Taupin said it’s not clear how mixed sample statistics were applied to those samples.

If we return to the Scrabble analogy, and imagine that some or all of those 16 allele boxes contain more than two letters, then the number of potential matches vastly increases.

At a basic level, that is what happens with DNA profiling, and is why in mixed samples it is easy to create false links between an accused and a crime scene.

During the Koh Tao trial, the court was told samples were found which match the profiles of the suspects in all 16 locations. But no statistic was offered to show how many other people in the population might also have matched, which Ms Taupin said defied international guidelines.

“If, for example, there were five contributors to a sample, probably most people including you and me could have contributed,” Ms Taupin said. “If you have five contributors, there are so many combinations of permutations that unless the particular crime scene sample had a really uncommon allele, most people in the population could have contributed.

“You have to consider, what are the other people in the population that could have provided, or who could match, that so-called DNA profile that you’ve obtained from the reference sample?”

Despite the prosecution claiming that the DNA evidence showed a match in the Koh Tao case, Ms Taupin said the power of DNA lies not in matching samples, but in its power of discrimination, or what the differences are. “And that is what was not explained in this particular case,” she said.

Ms Taupin said she is not critical of the court’s decision, but the DNA evidence presented by the prosecution had many potential flaws that needed more proper explanation.

Given the nature of mixed sample DNA analysis, she is particularly critical of claims by multiple police forensics experts that their lab results guaranteed the identity of the perpetrators “100%”.

She said there is no international standard that recommends the conclusion of identity from a forensic DNA profile, no matter how many areas on the DNA molecule are examined. 

It is for this reason, she said, that DNA profiling alone is not enough to form the basis of a criminal conviction. “It’s just one piece of the circumstantial case. It’s a scientific test, that’s all,” she said.

‘TRUE’ DECEPTION

Ms Taupin said there are many areas during the DNA profiling process where mistakes can be made, which is why the availability of data for peer review is essential.

“There are many ways that you can misinterpret a particular value as being an actual ‘true’ allelial result, and it’s not actually so,” she said.

Ms Taupin pointed to potential mistakes in the limited data presented to the court in the Koh Tao case. In the one-page table, an extra “allele value” — basically an extra Scrabble letter — was found in the DNA sample taken from Witheridge’s breast which did not match either of the accused.

“They [the prosecution] said, ‘Oh well, that doesn’t matter because the other components matched the accused,’ ” Ms Taupin said.

“But it does matter, because if there’s an extra value in there, and if the two accused contributed, then a third person must have donated.”

She said there were also a number of components in the retrieved semen samples, particularly in the anal swab recovered from Witheridge, that were a mixture of at least two people and possibly three.

But the steps to achieve all this were not provided.

Ms Taupin said she did not know whether the testing was conducted on the basis of only two suspects, or whether there were more. The starting assumption would influence how the DNA is analysed.

“The very first area that they look at out of the 16 is called D3, and one accused [in the Koh Tao case] was a 13,15 [allele value], and the second accused was a 13,15 at that area, and the crime scene stain was a 13,15. So they say, well, they could have contributed at that area,” Ms Taupin said.

“But also say for example you could be a 13,15, but I could be a 13,13, and I could have contributed if there’s two contributors. It all falls down on the basis that people can share alleles, and you can share with me a 13, and someone else can share a 15, so it’s all completely dependent on statistics.”

IMPERFECT MATCH

Ms Taupin also raised concerns about the mass collection of DNA that took place on Koh Tao as police desperately searched for suspects in the days after the crime.

While stressing that without access to the police records it’s impossible to know exactly what methods were used, she said “they obviously just kept testing people until they got components that matched. But that’s not how it works.

“If you test a lot of people, you don’t just test until you find that someone matches, because how many other people might match, how many other people that have left the island might match, or how many people in Thailand might match, or how many people in the United Kingdom might match.

“A fallacy, and that’s what I think happened, is that they’ve tested people until they’ve found people that had components that were in the mixture.”

If that is the case, she said, it would mean police have not looked at the whole concept of mixture statistics.

“How they could have ignored mixture statistics defies belief, and shows an absolute ignorance of the literature of the last 20 years and all international guidelines,” she said.

“One particularly disturbing aspect was that it said there was saliva on the right breast of the deceased, but there was no test for it. It was just assumed to be saliva. I mean where did they get that from?”

‘SHOULD BE DISMISSED’

Concerns over the handling of DNA evidence have not been limited to methodology alone. Doubts have also been raised about the laboratory where the crime scene samples were tested. Police presented no solid evidence to the court to show their laboratory was certified ISO17025, which specifies the general requirements to carry out tests, including sampling.

Some Thai DNA experts have questioned whether the police lab responsible for testing in this case had ISO17025 certification at the time of analysing forensic samples in the Koh Tao case.

Andy Hall, a British human rights defender and adviser to the defence team, said regardless of whether or not there was a certification, the process did not comply with proper standards in the opinion of Ms Taupin and the defence team.

“The DNA evidence, essentially the central part of the case against the accused, was very sloppily gathered, analysed and reported in a way that did not comply with international forensic standards,” said Mr Hall.

“That sloppy nature raised suspicions that meant the DNA match against the accused could not be proven beyond reasonable doubt by the prosecution and should be dismissed.”

But the court disagreed. It concluded that the DNA testing by the Royal Thai Police was credible and trustworthy.

The judges said the DNA evidence can prove beyond reasonable doubt that both of the defendants raped the second victim, “even without considering any other facts or circumstances such as the defendants’ confessions following arrest and at the interrogation stages”.

The court found no issue with the DNA evidence lacking any records of how and where it was handled, saying “they are internal procedures which differ within each organisation and does not contribute to inaccurate and incorrect test results, thus the result from both institutions have not been damaged or compromised”.

But Kingsley Abbott, the international legal adviser for Southeast Asia at the International Commission of Jurists, a Geneva-based human rights organisation, said there are several legal concerns about how the court approached the DNA evidence and allegations of torture which should be subject to careful review on appeal.

“A court must always approach DNA evidence, which is inherently complex and vulnerable to error, with the greatest of care,” he said.

“Before taking it into account, it must be sure there were no mistakes from the moment the DNA evidence was collected to the time it was transported, analysed and interpreted. This is only possible when a complete and detailed picture is presented and explained to the court by appropriate officials and experts.

“Whether this was done in this case consistent with international standards should be reviewed on appeal.”

He said allegations of torture made by the accused must be subject to a separate independent, impartial and effective investigation as alleged crimes in their own right.

“The appeal court should also review whether, in its decision, the trial court placed the burden of proof that torture occurred on the accused, contrary to international law,” said Mr Abbott.

“Once an allegation of torture is made, the burden falls on the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the evidence was obtained lawfully. Any evidence found to have been obtained by torture must be excluded from evidence in all proceedings.”

ON THE DEFENCE

In the wake of last month’s court ruling, the defence team has been heavily criticised for not attacking the DNA evidence more vigorously. Notably, questions linger over why Ms Taupin was never called to offer expert testimony.

Defence lawyer Nakhon Chompuchat said the case was complex but his team had taken great care to challenge the available DNA data.

“Police were given a very tough cross-examination regarding the subject of DNA evidence. This was a groundbreaking case, the first time a Thai criminal defence team ever challenged police forensic evidence and were granted a retest,” he said.

“The defence team drew extensively from what they learned from Jane [Taupin] in their questioning of the police DNA evidence. Most of what she pointed out Dr Pornthip did give testimony on.

“Since the defence team are preparing an appeal, certain elements of the case, this being one, cannot be further discussed at this time.”

Police, meanwhile, have been at pains to defend the integrity of their investigation.

They have, in particular, defended the quality of the DNA evidence, insisting it meets all international standards.

“The DNA evidence cannot lie,” said police spokesman Pol Maj Gen PiyaphanPingmuang.

But Ms Taupin is not so convinced.

“It’s quite specific that if you say a particular person has contributed to a DNA sample or crime stain, then you must state the statistical significance. You must. And the ‘must’ is in capital letters and underlined. That is an international guideline,” she said.

“So to say a crime scene stain matches a reference sample without any significance of inclusion, without any statistics, follows no recognised guideline, none at all.”

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/special-reports/821072/unlocking-the-dna...

For more than six months in 2011, YweJa refused to leave her home in Myanmar’s Kachin State despite heavy fighting around her village. It was where she was born, and she had built a life there as a teacher with a farmer husband and a young child.

“Then the authorities start seeing Kachins as part of the KIA (Kachin Independence Army). Business and social rivals could accuse you of having links with the KIA and the army would arrest you without any investigations,” she said.

Worried that her husband would fall prey to these suspicions and heavily pregnant with her second child, she finally left Tar Law Gyi, a village about two hours’ drive from Myitkyina, the Kachin state capital, in March 2012.

Two weeks after arriving at the St. Paul Jan Mai Hkawng camp, she gave birth.

“I never thought I’d end up staying here so long,” she said, sitting in the thatched-walled meeting room of the camp that she now helps to manage with the support of Karuna Myanmar Social Services, run by the Catholic Church. There is no more fighting in her village, but her family has not returned, fearing the continued presence of the Myanmar army and land mines in the area. 

For the first time since leaving her home, however, YweJa is full of hope.

“I didn’t vote in the 2010 elections because I didn’t think it was going to make a difference. This time, I woke up really early to vote. I’m very happy that NLD won. I think they will prioritise the peace process,” she told Myanmar Now, referring to Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy which won the Nov. 8 elections in a landslide.

It was a sentiment echoed by other internally displaced people (IDPs) this correspondent spoke to. They are pinning their hopes on the NLD government to achieve peace and begin the process of demilitarisation that would allow them to finally go home, almost five years after fighting resumed between the army and Kachin rebels.

Fighting has displaced around 100,000 people in Kachin and northern Shan States since June 2011 after a 17-year ceasefire broke down over long-held grievances. With peace proving elusive, the displaced - in both government and rebel-controlled areas – have become disillusioned.

“The longer (the IDPs stay in these camps), the more difficult it is for them. There are no jobs nearby and there are land constraints to create your own livelihoods. Foreign aid has been reducing and because everything is up in the air, those who are helping are losing steam and the displaced are losing hope,” said PhyuEi Aung from Metta Foundation, one of Myanmar’s largest non-governmental organisations that has been providing emergency assistance since 2011.

Violence against women is also rife, with a majority of cases being husbands taking out their frustration over the situation on their wives, she added. Metta documented 583 cases in 41 camps in the 15 months between April 2014 and March 2015.

It is little wonder then that many have been galvanised by the election results, where NLD’s strong showing in ethnic states surprised observers. In Kachin, it won 22 out of 30 elected seats for the two houses of parliament and more than half of the state legislature, giving it a strong mandate to govern at both local and national levels.

“All the displaced are looking forward to the new government to create (a country) where everyone is able to live happily and peacefully regardless of their race and religion,” said JaKhunYa, a 40-year-old from the same village as YweJa.

LIVES INTERRUPTED

Since fighting resumed, the IDPs have been languishing in small, hastily-built shelters that flood in monsoon and become unbearably hot in the summer, facing dwindling aid support and an uncertain future.

The United Nations’ World Food Programme, which provides food assistance to Kachin IDPs, told Myanmar Now it is facing a $51 million shortfall. The organisation has already started to replace food assistance with cash to IDPs in places with access to markets but said this is not directly linked to the shortfall.

The situation is even direr for those who are outside of government-controlled areas due to their remote locations and even more scarce aid.

Many fear the worst is yet to come.

“In the camp, we don’t have any income, only expenses,” LahtawKhunYa, also 40, said. “I have eight children and my husband was diagnosed with diabetes last year so he cannot do manual labour. But he went with some friends for a labourer job today,” she added.

The IDPs say they are willing to work, but jobs are few and far between. They say most end up working in construction sites for a daily wage of around $2.30 for women and $4.70 for men, but much less sometimes.

“The employers sometimes pay us less. They would say, “You are receiving support from aid agencies so 2,000 kyats ($1.50) is enough.” We don’t have a choice,” JaKhunYa said.

In the bigger Zi Un camp, where 710 people are supported mainly by the Kachin Baptist Convention, dozens of women make money sewing traditional Kachin headgear, which allows them to stay close to their children. It is a time-consuming task, taking about 40 to 50 minutes to earn 100 Kyats ($0.08) for each headpiece.

Young men, meanwhile, have dropped out of schools to find jobs.

Twenty-year-old Zau Phan says he would like the opportunity to finish his high school. After failing his 10th standard exam last year, he now works as a tenant farmer in another town. He was one of the few IDPs who did not vote.

“I was away and I’m not interested in politics, but yeah, I’m hoping for change. But it’s difficult to guess what would happen,” he said.

LINGERING SCARS

Aid workers, however, warn against setting too high an expectation.

“I don’t think we will see any drastic changes for a year or two. Even if the IDPs can go back to their villages because the political situation is now good, we would still need to assist them so they can go back to making a living like they did before the fighting,” Metta’s EiPhyu Aung said.

Lu San, a 39-year-old mother of four who used to run a small store, said she went through the lengthy bureaucratic process to gain approvals to briefly go back to her village across the river from Myitkyina a few months after fleeing. They had left the shop and hundreds of baskets of paddy.

“There was nothing left. All the valuable stuff had been looted. I heard later the army took them,” she said, her voice rising at the memory.

Mental scars will also need to be healed. Many lost friends and families, and almost everyone lost their possessions. They have also heard tales of neighbours and fellow villagers being tortured, maimed and killed, mainly by the Myanmar army, fuelling fear and hatred as well as distrust among the different ethnic groups that make up these villages.

Born in 1942, Hkun Baw La says he has heard and seen what he said were atrocities committed by the military government towards ethnic minorities in the 1960s. Yet ordinary citizens forged lasting friendships and in his village, home to Shan, Kachin and Bamar, a Christian church and a Buddhist monastery stood side-by-side before the fighting, he said.

Now there are people’s militias in many villages, including Hkun Baw’s, where the Shan and Bamar received weapons from the government to protect themselves against the KIA, the IDPs said.

Lu San has a plea for the NLD and the political leaders who are currently in Myanmar’s grandiose capital Nay Pyi Taw for a five-day peace conference.

“Please withdraw the troops as soon as possible, and please prioritise de-mining and sending us back. We are yearning to go home.” 

Students of the Myanmar’s Ministry of Construction training college on the outskirts of Yangon sit patiently listening in an open humid room, their tools stacked under their chairs.

At face value, the class would appear to be yet another lesson in theory for for Yangon’s future builders, a standard curriculum for a vocational college.

But there is a crucial component added to the tuition in this class that speaks to Myanmar’s need to protect its citizens in the event of a massive earthquake.

Architects and building standards officials are seeking to pass on crucial knowledge to provide professional level building practices that take into account the danger posed by earthquakes.

In simple language, the aim is to train builders to erect buildings that are not going to fall down or get seriously damaged in a major quake.

For Yangon, that means the potential danger posed by the Sagaing fault-line that runs north to south through Myanmar and Ayerawaddy Delta, as U Ko Ko Gyi, a key member of the Myanmar Engineer Society points out.

“We’re afraid of this fault. There have been no major earthquakes after the Bago earthquake. From previous data it is near to its next cycle and people expect that we are very close to the time,” said U Ko Ko Gyi. As he says, the plate is moving by about 20mm a year.

Seismologists have known of the highly volatile Sagaing fault-line for some time and the potential catastrophe it can cause. Yet previous governments have done little raise awareness, or to upgrade building codes so that new or refurbished building can stand the test posed by a large earthquake.

Building planners are reminded of the 1930 Bago quake measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale (RS), centred roughly 37 kilometres south of Bago. The quake killed 500 people in Bago and another 50 in Yangon. Later the same year, another quake measuring 7.3 RS killed 30 people near Pyay.

The deaths were primarily due to the collapse of buildings.

Myanmar as of 1931 had a population over 14.5 million people. Today, with over 51 million people, a similar disaster along the Sagaing fault-line has the potential to kill hundreds of thousands due to the expansion in urban growth.

“Bago, Taungoo, Nay Pyi Taw, it passes through Nay Pyi Taw, and then through Sagaing City and it is very close to Mandalay, so the risk is there,” said Mr Jaiganesh Murugesan, a Disaster Risk Reduction and Management specialist from UN Habitat.

Mr Murugesan said that “because of development, cities are growing and you have more people coming in. The risk is also increasing because there aren’t plans and that is one reason why we are working with the Myanmar Engineering Society to build a risk assessment of the cities.”

An impending disaster

Myanmar has had a long history of documented earthquakes, many of them small and non-lethal, causing little damage in areas with sparse population.

Dr Myo Thant a senior member of the Myanmar Earthquake Committee and Myanmar Geoscience Society told Mizzima Weekly the chance for another extreme earthquake that could be as high as 8 on the Richter scale is possible, and soon.

“In 1839, Innwa experienced a 7.3 earthquake and then near on 100 years later Bago suffered a 7.3 in 1930. We cannot predict earthquakes, but there could be a large one soon as the Bago event was only 80-odd years ago,” he said.

“The other large one to occur on the Sagaing fault was in 1956 near Sagaing,” said Dr Myo Thant, noting that this quake measured 7 RS and resulted in the deaths of 40-50 people. Several pagodas were seriously damaged.

Dr Myo Thant told Mizzima Weekly that the MEC was working with a Singapore university as well as other local universities to conduct risk assessments of Pyay, Bago, Sagaing and Taungoo, as well as drawing up seismic hazard maps for those regions.

Myanmar is located on the Eurasian Plate in its own sub-category plate known as the ‘Burma Plate.’ It rests against the Indo-Australia Plate and the India Plate.

The Burma Plate was involved in the 2004 tsunami where a massive quake measuring from 9.1 to 9.3 RS occurred off the Sumatra coast causing a massive tsunami that devastated Indonesia and Thailand, also affecting Sri Lanka, India and as far as the Maldives and Somalia.

Even though Myanmar was affected by this tsunami, the total death toll is unclear as the authorities were allegedly tight-mouthed on the outcome. Officially, 90 deaths were announced with some speculating that the death toll may have been as high as 400-600 people. Around, 30,000 people were negatively affected and were in need of shelter, food and water.

Earthquakes don’t kill people, buildings do

Building codes for Myanmar have always relied on the builder’s knowledge, which has mainly been informed by international standards.

But now that has changed as Myanmar has drafted its own building code that is in its provisional stages, due to be set by the end of the year.

“The Ministry (MoC or Ministry of Construction) is taking the leadership to ensure that all other ministries are taking the initiative to follow the new code, so it is now about awareness,” said Mr Murugesan.

The legal framework that is required for the code to be enforced is being finalised. In the meantime the Ministry of Construction and various NGOs and CSGs are relying on capacity-building events to educate engineers and construction entrepreneurs on the importance of the country’s new code.

The framework as a whole contains technical aspects that will eventually regulate the heights of buildings and the way that the foundations are built to handle the destructive impact of earthquakes in danger zones. Certain areas are at particular risk.

Tests have been conducted in cities that are most at risk. In order to map areas of risk, specialists must map all areas of a city to understand soil types, as the different types affect how the quake will affect buildings.

“We have a very good understanding of the shaking, which part of the city will have what level of shaking, and what are we are trying to do is determine the (standards for the) buildings,” said Mr Murugesan, noting that Myanmar has a very different style of buildings compared with other countries.

Those who live by waterways are most at risk of being severely affected by earthquakes due to the unstable soil. Therefore, there is great fear among experts of the potential for serious damage to Mandalay and Sagaing City.

“In Mandalay there are many high buildings and it is a high-risk city for earthquakes, yet they build many storeys,” said Mr Murugesan. “Also in Mandalay near the riverside there is a high potential for damage, we are very worried about that.”

He said the large city of Mandalay with its high-rise buildings should be made “earthquake resistant” and the authorities need to bring in the necessary building controls.

For much of the first 20 years of her life, Maran Ja Seng Hkawn was raised by her grandmothers in Kachin, Myanmar’s northernmost state, without her parents or siblings by her side and under the scrutiny of military intelligence.

Her crime? She was born into a revolutionary Kachin family.

Decades on, the 50-year-old daughter of a late rebel leader is poised to enter Kachin State Parliament as an elected member when it reconvenes in early February. She is one of only five representatives from Kachin parties to have won a seat in the Nov. 8 elections, which saw Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) sweep the board.

“I’m happy that I’d be able to work in a legal and official capacity… Of course, I don’t know whether I would be able to do (everything) I wish to but I’m going to work to achieve a federal union that is fair and based on the wishes of the ethnic people,” she said.

When Ja Seng Hkawn was six months old, her father left to join the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO), the political wing of the insurgent Kachin Independence Army (KIA), which was fighting for independence. Her mother followed him to rebel-held territory with her older brother when Ja Seng Hkawn was three, and gave birth to five more children there.

“I grew up in the arms of my grandmothers from both sides of the family. I couldn’t even remember what my parents looked like,” she told Myanmar Now, sitting on the terrace of her riverside home in a quiet suburb of Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin.

“We couldn’t go 10 miles beyond the city without permission. We were constantly questioned. But I never felt scared or humiliated,” she added, her slightness and soft-spoken manner belying a political steeliness.

Ja Seng Hkawn said she knew “by instinct” she would be joining her family, which she did, 30 years ago, abandoning her teaching job and joining the KIO struggle for Kachin self-determination.

By then, the dream of independence had been revised to a federal union after her father, Maran Brang Seng, was elected KIO chairman in 1976. Ja Seng Hkawn lived among the insurgents from 1986, working closely with her father, and bore witness to a period of upheaval and change.

There was heavy fighting between the Myanmar army and the rebels, resulting in the loss of numerous KIO strongholds including their headquarters in Pajao. But the KIO also managed to find western allies sympathetic to their cause.

“Brang Seng was the first Kachin leader to reach out to the outside world in a broader, non-partisan sense,” BertilLintner, a Swedish journalist and author of books on Myanmar’s ethnic insurgencies, told Myanmar Now.

REBEL TO ACTIVIST

Brang Seng suffered a stroke in October 1993 and passed away in 1994, months after his deputy signed a ceasefire with Myanmar’s junta, an accord that lasted 17 years.

Ja Seng Hkawng stayed in rebel ranks for 16 more years, before returning to Myitkyina in 2010, intending to participate in the country’s elections. But the Kachin State Progressive Party (KSPP), founded by Dr.ManamTuJa, another former KIO stalwart, was not allowed to register.

 “When I first came back here I was very surprised. People were so scared and didn’t even dare speak to each other,” she said. “Over there, it was much freer. You could be honest with everyone and speak your mind, whether it’s the chairman or the army chief.”

She began her political career in Myanmar by bringing together women to advance the rights of the Kachin minority.

“We started Kachin Women’s Union at my house, bringing two women with some influence from each township. We would meet here, get hold of whatever documents we can find on human rights, women’s rights, democracy, and read and discuss them. We were like kids,” she recalled.

Then the ceasefire broke down in June 2011 and fighting erupted, displacing tens of thousands of people.

“There are so many issues in Kachin. The government was talking about national reconciliation but constantly increasing the number of troops. There are environmental issues, including the Myitsone dam. There’s land grabbing. There’s also rape of ethnic women… many cases that people have not heard of,” she said.

 When President Thein Sein suspended the controversial Chinese-led Myitsone dam project in September 2011, a group of Kachins, including Ja Seng Hawn, decided to hold a celebration. They tried to get some kind of support from Aung San Suu Kyi, another famous soldier’s daughter, but there was no response.

Suu Kyi visited Myitkyina on the same day, not to attend the Myitsone event, but to rally support for the NLD ahead of by-elections.

“Everyone was sad. Of course, we’d like her to give the event some respect,” she said. Still, she went on to organise several other events, emboldening the local civil society.

NLD DOMINATES

Like many ethnic leaders, Ja Seng Hkawn believes Kachin State’s interests would be best served by Kachins managing their own affairs.

Yet her views did not seem to be shared by the electorate - out of a total of 70 elected seats in the state, only five candidates from two Kachin parties won. She blamed the result on a divided vote and the fact that voters’ main motivation was to throw out the military-backed government.

“In 2010, we weren’t allowed to form a party. That turned upside down in 2015 when lots of political parties were set up,” she said.

There were attempts to merge or form alliances – she believes the Kachins should be united if they are to achieve federalism – but nothing materialised, and before the election, everyone was over-confident of their prospects, she said.

Ja Seng Hkawn ran under the banner of Kachin State Democracy Party (KSDP), another party founded by Dr.TuJa, for Injangyang (2) constituency. Her husband, also a former KIO officer, ran with a different party. He lost.

“There’s much that we’ve done in Injangyang, but much more needs to be done. Farming is the only livelihood and it’s not secure. When it was time to register for the elections, I decided to go with Injangyang and a party that I know well,” she said.

Due to insecurity, elections were held in just one of the 35 village tracts in her constituency. She won 203 out of only 386 votes - a little over 50 percent.

“I ran for the state parliament because there’s so much to be done here. I didn’t want to go to the national parliament and spend five years yawning. At least here, you can use whatever opportunity you have to change things (on ethnic and women’s rights and Kachin self-determination) on the ground,” said Ja Seng Hkawn.

She is, however, worried about the implications of a single-party dominating the parliament.

“If it’s like the NUP (Ne Win’s party) being substituted by the USDP and now USDP would be substituted by the NLD, I don’t think that should happen,” she said.

MULTI-HYPHENATED

Ja Seng Hkawn is one of a number of passionate and prominent Kachin women who are shaping the state’s social and political landscape, from Lahpai Seng Raw, winner of the Ramon Magsaysay Award, Asia’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize, to champions of peace, women’s rights and land rights.

She has many strings to her bow. The MP-elect is also chairman of Kachin State Public Company Limited, which runs utilities and other businesses together with the government – in what the Economist called a “novel private-public partnership”. 

“We wanted to show other Kachins that there’s more to economy than extraction and selling timber,” she said. Another motivation was to push reform of Myanmar’s overburdened and inefficient public sector, instead of just criticising from the outside.  

So far, the company has signed contracts with the state government to run two small hydroelectric plants and provide ticketing and other services for the Mandalay-Myitkyina train.

She also continues to campaign for the scrapping the Myitsone project at the source of the Ayeyarwady River. In 2013, she visited China to lobby for its cancellation but nearly lost her cool in a meeting with officials from the Commerce Ministry and the Export Import Bank of China, which has provided Myanmar with multi-million dollar loans.

“They kept wanting to talk about how to re-start the project. I got so tired of explaining I said, ‘There’s no way (to continue). If you kill the Ayeyarwady, you’re killing the whole country.’”

A devout Christian, Ja Seng Hkawn is frustrated by the breakdown of the ceasefire and resumption of hostilities. 

“In the 50 years of conflict in Kachin, this is the first time the villagers have been displaced for this long. The weapons are now much more powerful and create much more damage,” she said.

The solution, she says, lies in a federal system that promotes the rights of Myanmar’s minorities.

 “My father worked to achieve the people’s desire for a federal Myanmar and Kachin self-determination. I will continue to work for this.” 

The faces of Myanmar’s new Parliament, when it convenes in Napyitaw on February 1, will be almost unrecognisable when compared to the previous assembly.   

Few old faces have clung on and the green of the Union Solidarity and Development Party will make way for the red of the National League for Democracy. Former teachers, engineers, social workers, poets and musicians will take the place of the stalwarts and former members of the old regime and those with experience in office will be replaced by those have little.

But another glaring feature of new Parliament is the limited representation of ethnic parties. Lost in the wave of support for Aung San Suu Kyi's NLD, and with the competition between dozens of ethnic parties dividing the votes in their constituencies, ethnic parties failed to gain the results they expected. Only 11 ethnic parties won seats in the Union Parliament in the November elections.

Whether this Parliament will bring a period of progress on ethnic issues remains to be seen. How will the ethnic party MP's make sure their voices are heard over those of the overwhelming NLD majority? Myanmar Now spoke to six newly elected MPs from five ethnic parties about their parliamentary aspirations, what alliances they will form and what drives them. 

Sai Wan Hlaing Kham, 35, Shan Nationalities League for Democracy, Upper House, Shan state constituency 3, Shan State:

My background is as a social worker. I worked with young people on issues such as education and drugs. I feel the young people are the future of our nation. Every issue should be about our youth. The drug issue is very sensitive in our areas. Some places have no rule of law, the government cannot control these areas and now they're under the military or militias. Our people have no drug education and it's a problem.

We need to let the MPs from the Burmese majority understand how the ethnic people have been suffering in the past. In Parliament we won’t be able to work by ourselves, we will have to work with them and advocate, and allow them to understand what the needs of the ethnics are. Some issues are majority issues and if they suit us we will support them. 

The new Parliament is not a dictatorship, it's a democracy. Laws like the Land Law and Education Law, and the peace issue affect us too so if they come up we will support them. It’s not only about the needs of ethnics. We'll quickly learn which NLD MPs are the smartest and who have the best communication skills and we'll seek to work with them.

In the next Parliament we must also work with other ethnic parties. Right now, there's not a lot of unity amongst ethnic parties, there's only the UNA (United Nationalities Alliance). In the future we must make a plan to unify with other ethnic parties.

Nan Moe, 32 ,Ta’ang National Party, Lower House, Manton constituency, Shan State:

The most important thing is peace. I won my constituency but if you don't have peace we wont be able to achieve anything so peace building is the most important thing for the new government. In 2013, I joined the TNP because I realised that it's better to hold a pen and try for peace than a gun, so I knew I had to go into Parliament.

I haven't experienced gender equality since I was a child so I'm not afraid of anything. 

Sex and gender equality and overall equality is important to me. From what I've seen over the last year, we don't have equality in this country. Even in my party, there's only three women members in the CEC (central executive committee) out of 65 members! That's not a parliamentary or party issue, it starts in our homes. In our families, in my constituency and amongst our people they differentiate between girls and boys from a young age. There aren't enough educated women now. I have to change this. Not only men can become leaders.

I have to work with the NLD, where our policies are the same we must work together. Our policy is also democracy. I've got many friends within the NLD and I've already decided that even though I don't have the same influence as the NLD MPs I will learn from them. I don't have any experience in Parliament right now, it'll take about one year for me and others to build up experience.

Htoo May, 28, Arakan National Party, Upper House, Rahkine state constituency 11, Rakhine State:

We must amend the Constitution. Citizens voted for the NLD because they want to change the state, to change the state it's fundamental to change the Constitution. I think Aung San Suu Kyi can push softly for change to the chief of military and if he is a real leader who is truly working for his country, not for individuals, then he will know what is needed to change Myanmar.

We must establish rule of law in this country. We have to decentralise power, and regional and national governments must establish taxes. Also our education system is really weak. In most ethnic areas we don't have equality of education access so many young people are leaving their homes. Like me, I was born in Rhakine but I moved to Rangoon when I was 14 with my family for a better education. In Mandalay and Rangoon the education standard is so different to ethnic areas. We have to invest in education and our youth. I believe the youth can change the world.

I believe in collective power and collaboration, but I'm also concerned because most of the seats in ethnic areas went to the NLD, especially in the Upper House, so when we're working for federalism most of the signatures will be from the NLD. These MPs have to respect NLD policy, but I'm concerned whether they will work for NLD’s policy or for the needs of ethnics. 

Lama Naw Aung, 50, Kachin State Democracy Party, Lower House, Injangyan constituency, Kachin State: 

I think the Myitsone dam project is a big issue for the next government. There is the potential for conflict between the NLD government and us, the native Kachin people. Since the beginning, the Kachin people haven't accepted this project at all and if this project resumes or hasn't been stopped indefinitely, there will be a problem between us and those who allow it to go ahead. 

Another thing is the way natural resources are managed among central and state governments. I accept that it’s not going to be easy for the next government to manage resource sharing because it's a complicated issue tied to the 2008 Constitution. But I think there is a way to work something out.

In the last Parliament, ethnic parties had no chance to make laws for the benefit of their states because it was dominated by the UDSP. In the 2015 election the people gave the NLD the mandate to lead the country so I look forward to working with a government that will take the needs of ethnics into consideration when making laws. If we, ethnic parties and the NLD, can collaborate, the legislature will be much stronger. Nevertheless, there are differences in policy between the NLD and ethnic parties. I'm concerned the NLD MP's could object to our proposals as they don't know what's best for our states.

PaungLun Min Htan, 45, Zomi Congress for Democracy, Chin State parliament, Chin state constituency Tonzang 2, Chin State:

I think the new (Chin State) parliament will be more effective than the old one. With the newly elected candidates come new ideas. We want to change the country, everyone accepts there is a need to change so I think this parliament will be very effective.

We have a lot of responsibility. We've been elected by our people. The last governments weren't reflective of the people but this time it's different. Our ethnic areas are very poor, they lack basic health care facilities as well as many other things so development of these areas is a major issue. My focus for my area is building roads and providing electricity for my area. In five years’ time I hope I can say my constituency is more developed than before I was elected. 

My background is as a social worker. When I was studying physics at university I worked for a Zomi Citizens Student Union and from then on I moved into social work. Before I was in politics I kept thinking 'how much money do I need to help these people?' But in politics, you don't need to think like that. Now I'm an elected MP I can do it through the assembly. 

In Chin state, the NLD has 12 seats and Zomi only has two, so of course we must work out how to share with them. Even though we are the minority, we still must stand for our rights and the needs of our people in the assembly. We were chosen to represent our people so we will be there as a voice for them.

Nain Thiha, 50, Mon National Party, Upper House, Mon state constituency Mon 7, Mon State:

There are coal-fired power stations being built in Mon state, particularly in Ye Township, and this is something that the Mon people don't support. I'm the only Mon National Party representative in the Union Parliament so I will be bringing this to national attention. I aim to draft a proposal to stop these coal plants and I'm going to be asking fellow Mon MPs for their support. I think that all the NLD Mon MPs feel the same and will support me on this motion.

The Mon National Party is a member of United Nationalities Alliance, which is a coalition of ethnic parties in an informal alliance with NLD. This means it shouldn't be difficult to co-operate with the NLD when creating and passing legislature.

I'm optimistic about this Parliament. The NLD will lead the government and I'm confident that they will push for the rights of ethnic people because they care about ethnic issues, unlike the USDP regime. So it will be an improvement on the last Parliament.

Despite its strong mandate from a thumping election victory, Myanmar’s new National League for Democracy government will struggle to wield the power it needs over the civil service to carry out its reform plans effectively, political analysts say.

During the days of military rule, Myanmar’s civil service was supplanted with a powerful, centralised institution controlled by the army - the General Administration Department (GAD). It controls decision-making down to the smallest administrative unit in all corners of the country.

This arrangement underlines the continuing powers of the military and raises questions over whether a civilian NLD cabinet would be able to exert control over an integral part of government machinery.

“The GAD is actually and potentially so powerful that its very character will really determine the extent to which Myanmar’s bureaucracy is ‘democratised’ or ‘reformed’,” said Trevor Wilson, Australia’s former ambassador to Myanmar, who continues to write about the country.

Breaking up the GAD’s centralised control over government bureaucracy and transferring some of its powers to the states and regions will be necessary if the NLD is to create a genuine federal union in Myanmar, as ethnic minorities have long demanded.

The GAD falls under the authority of the Minister of Home Affairs, who, in accordance with the 2008 Constitution, is an army general, just like the Minister of Defence and the Minister of Border Affairs and Immigration.

Thus, Commander-in-Chief Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing wields ultimate control over the civil service down to the ward and village level, even though an NLD president will soon run the cabinet.  

“This will be a headache for the incoming NLD-led government,” said Ko Ni, a constitutional lawyer who advises the NLD.

A post-election report from the International Crisis Group in December notes that the NLD’s lack of control over the Home Affairs Minister post and the GAD will present the party with a serious challenge. “It will be very difficult for the new government to run Myanmar… without the military’s cooperation,” the paper said.

POWERFUL AND UBIQUITOUS

The workings of the GAD are little known. A 2014 report by the Asia Foundation offers a rare piece of research that describes its powers: “The General Administration Department is central to the functioning of the administrative mechanism across the country. No other government organisation has such a wide presence in the country. Even the Tatmadaw (army) is not spread among the general population to the same degree.

“The importance of the GAD depends not so much on what it explicitly controls, which is, in fact, a great deal, but rather because of the GAD’s ubiquitous presence, and the authority to coordinate, communicate among, and convene other government actors,” said the report, noting the GAD had not been subject to any reforms during President Thein Sein’s term.

The GAD was born in 1972 under dictator General Ne Win whose government abolished the previous bureaucratic structure – the Secretariat Office. Under the post-1988 junta, “the GAD expanded in size and importance to support functioning of the Myanmar state,” the report said.

The department now supports coordination between the government’s 36 ministries, connects the government in the capital Naypyidaw with the nearly 64,000 villages in the country, and runs the civil service of the states and regions.

It oversees local governance in rural and urban areas, with its broad powers reaching to land management, media scrutiny, registration of non-governmental and community organisations, and the documentation of the internal migration of people.

District and township administrators are GAD officials, while a GAD executive secretary controls a state/region’s civil service and answers to a superior in Naypyidaw rather than to the state or region’s chief minister.

On a local level, GAD administrators are the civil servants that ordinary citizens come into contact with for day-to-day needs, from registration of births and deaths to disputes and tax collection.

NEED FOR REFORM

Ba Maw, a Minister of Social Affairs in Chin State and a Union Solidarity and Development Party member, said GAD officials were powerful in running the civil service in his state and even managed the correspondence of the state ministers, including his. 

He and some state ministers suggested revoking the powers of the GAD at meetings with top Home Affairs officials in Naypyidaw, but their proposal was ignored. “They replied that the GAD officers will need to manage and facilitate the transfer of power from the outgoing government to the incoming administration,” he said.

According to Nyo Nyo Thin, an outgoing independent member of parliament in Yangon Region, the Minister for Home Affairs had appointed mostly former military officers as district and township level administrators, adding that this had hindered transparent reforms.

Nyo Nyo Thin recalled that she once managed to reveal a corruption case involving a GAD official who was a former army officer, but he did not lose his job and was instead transferred to another township.

She said reforms of the GAD should be implemented so that the district and township administrator positions are filled through an election process. Currently, only ward and village tract administrators are democratically elected, but have little power.

“The fact that only the Ministry of Home Affairs can appoint these officers does not conform to democracy,” she told Myanmar Now. “Whether the chief ministers of states and regions can rein in the GAD officers will be a great challenge to the new government.” 

Ko Ni, who advises the NLD, said the state and region chief ministers would have the power to dismiss any GAD officials who obstruct the orders of the new state and region governments. “The GAD officer is responsible for implementing the decisions of the local governments. If he cannot do that he can be removed from his post,” he said.

According to Wilson, the former Australian ambassador, the GAD’s structure and authority as a department are not necessarily problematic, as long as the GAD is brought under control of the president, and its operations are made transparent and are closely scrutinised, preferably by parliament.

“The GAD is effectively the elite political agency in the Myanmar bureaucracy. Most bureaucracies (in other countries) have a powerful elite agency performing a stabilising and essential political role,” he said.

Hla Myo, director of the GAD’s Foreign Relations Branch, warned against the new NLD government rushing into dramatic reforms.

But NLD advisor Ko Ni said some reform was inevitable. GAD’s control over the civil service of the states and regions should be broken up and given to the state and region governments instead, he said.

“The control of General Administration Department on all the government procedures is contrary to the federal system and should be abolished,” he told Myanmar Now. 

Booming construction fuels sand mining, and threatens coastal environment and tourism, writes Denise Hruby in Earth Island Journal, February 4.

As a main ingredient of cement, sand is a vital component in almost any construction, whether that of a skyscraper or a middle-class home, a countryside road or a vast bridge. But the resource is finite, and as construction booms in Myanmar and across Asia, the industry has fuelled the illegal mining of sand — with harsh implications for Myanmar’s environment and burgeoning tourism industry.

As Ms Hruby points out, Myanmar’s Ngapali beach is being mined heavily for sand, with trucks coming regularly to haul it away, and vast craters dotting the coastline.

While the report focuses on Ngapali beach, known for some time to be at risk, other beaches are also being “mined” for sand.

Demand for sand isn’t just growing in Ngapali, but across the globe, according to the report. The UN says sand and gravel are the most heavily mined solid material worldwide — at least 40 billion tons are needed each year for construction.

Folk history holds that the names Burma and Myanmar come from the name of the deity Brahma, a nod to the country’s early connections with the Indian subcontinent.  

Cultural links to India such as this grew more and more sparse over the centuries, until the events of the latter half of the 20th century saw a much smaller Indian community that now walks a narrow path; trying to preserve their culture while maintaining acceptance in the larger Myanmar community.

Preserving Language

The most pressing challenge for the Tamil community of late has been preserving their culture in a school system and society dominated by Bamar society and language.

Tamils in the country had to learn Burmese, and it has become the preferred language to use at home for many. Most have taken on Burmese names which they use outside their community, while they reserve their Tamil name for home or temple life.

U Ha Tin, the owner of one Tamil restaurant, said that his parents came from India, and while he speaks the language fluently, his children do not. In his daily life, he said, his language is losing out to Burmese even within his community.

26-year-old Ko Myo Tun runs a publishing house for Tamil-language material in Yangon, and said that there is still a steady niche demand for Tamil material, especially for religious purposes. He said that even in his profession, he doesn’t read or write fluently, but instead relies on a team of older editors and proofreaders to correct his work. 

Many temples and organizations organize Tamil classes on evenings and weekends, but time can be hard to come by for Burmese students, with classes swelling only during school breaks. 

One such school is the Tamil Education Development Centre, which runs language classes in Yangon, Mandalay and Mon State. One of the school’s leaders, U Zaw Min Lat, said that the number of students has been steadily growing, up from 2,500 in 2015 to 3,500 at the start of this year.
 
Tamil has had somewhat of a revival in recent years, owing to better access to Tamil-language films, TV, and movies. According to one man, “Before, we had to drill language, but now they can pick it up from pollution,” referring to what in claimed was the poor quality of TV, damaging the minds of kids.

Other traditions are harder to hold on to. There are no schools for southern India’s Karnatic music in Yangon for example, only occasional teachers who pass through and give classes.

Community and Cohesion

In late January, the Tamil world celebrated the Hindu festival of Thaipusam, in which participants carried heavy pots of milk and occasionally pierced their flesh as an act of devotion. Yangon’s processions occurred around the city, involving hundreds of worshipers and untold gallons of milk.

One attendee was octogenarian U Aung Myint, who holds a perspective that spans the decades of change for Myanmar’s Tamil community. He was born a child of the British Empire, and still holds on to a few anachronisms, occasionally saying Dalhousie Street instead of Mahabandoola. 

He managed to stay in India throughout the wars and expulsions, and was one of the last to receive a degree before universities shut down in 1962, and has worked as an engineer and civil servant up to the present day, now an executive officer, presidential advisor, and occasional speechwriter at UMFCCI. 

There are approximately one million ethnic Indians living in Myanmar, mostly south of Mandalay. The largest group is the Tamils, but estimates as to the relative size vary greatly. 

Tamils, native to southeastern India and northern Sri Lanka, are one of the world’s largest ethnic groups without a nation, a total of 77 million people worldwide. U Aung Myint said because of this, there are few outside sources of funding for temples, and most are maintained with funds within their community.

“We try hard to organize, to create a sense of commitment. People come to ceremonies and gatherings of their own will, but it takes money,” He said, “between the food and the flowers and the pots of milk that people donate, it can cost 20,000 kyat per person, a lot of money for some.”

He continued that some people try to visit India to see distant relatives or go on pilgrimages, but again, money can be a problem for such an insular community.

Merchants of Rangoon

Relations within the community have managed to remain tight, but Myanmar’s Tamils struggled for decades to overcome a damaged reputation, stemming from prominent money lending within the community under British rule.

During British rule over India, Tamils were pressed into service throughout the empire from South Africa to Malaysia, and some took up residence in Yangon. One group, the Chettiar caste, brought over and expanded the traditional Hundi banking system, allowing remittance and credit in places without access to the lumbering British banking system.

However, this led to simmering tensions between local farmers on the ‘Rice Frontier’ and their foreign lenders Chettiars would often secure loans with land deeds, and when farmers couldn’t pay up, the land was redistributed within the Indian community.

Economist Sean Turnell argued in a 2005 paper  that despite their reputation, Chettiars played a positive role in modernizing Burma’s agriculture; that they acted as a bridge between the local community and European finance, creating the importation of machinery and bringing greater mobility to the local population.

The Bamar population, though, saw their land slowly slipping away, and by the onset of the Second World War, one quarter of land was in their hands.

 “The Chettiars made mistakes; they were too aggressive enforcing loans, and they distanced themselves from the Bamar,” said U Aung Myint, “The same problem of money lending and land grabbing still exists today, but it is not as exposed because the lenders are of the same community.”

This system came crashing down following the Japanese invasion in 1942 when many Indians fled back by road to Assam, at least 80,000 dying along the way. Those who stayed or returned after the war were then left as scapegoats for the ruined economy. 

Citizenship was further restricted after Ne Win’s 1962 coup d’état, and Tamils were increasingly pushed to the margins of society with their businesses confiscated and community largely exiled. Yangon, a city that was at one point majority South Asian, was left with only few pockets of Indian-Burmese who held onto citizenship. 

According to U Aung Myint: “People didn’t care enough about their citizenship. Many Indians were farmers or workers and didn’t know better. Those without citizenship couldn’t get jobs, and they had to leave their land and their businesses.”

Now the Chettiar caste is all but gone in Myanmar. Most have gone to India or passed away, and U Aung Myint said that most temples only count a few left among their congregation. 

Renewed Integration

Publisher Ko Myo Tun said that he didn’t feel Tamils were particularly alienated within Yangon. “We are discriminated against, but less than other minority groups because we are Hindu, but partly Buddhist. It is all very similar.”

While Tamils maintain their separate temples in Yangon, Buddha worship is quite common as a part of their religion, and Buddha images are often prominently displayed in Hindu processions. 

In the past few decades, there have been fewer problems with integrating with the Bamar community, U Aung Myint said. “When a [Buddhist] monk comes to my family’s door, we give them money. We are working to achieve harmony.”

After decades of laying low, lower Myanmar’s Indians gravitated back towards business when the economy began to open up in the 1990s, and have once again become a prominent force in society. 

“In my opinion, [Indians] became interested in business because many felt they wouldn’t be treated equally if they joined government service,” U Aung Myint said. “We are a hard-working people. We have always been bankers and traders. There was a time when you could look around and see every bank filled with Indian faces, but now people are hesitant about large institutions.”

In the end, it may have been the decades of mutual hardship that is bringing the Indian community back into the fold.

“It is hard to say that the jealousy and mistrust is gone, but relations have greatly improved,” he said, “We lost everything, then we regrouped, and now all we can do is look to the future.”

After Husaina’s 20-year-old son fled poverty and discrimination in Myanmar’s Rakhine State by boat, she heard nothing from him for seven months.

Then, in a shocking phone call, she was told the young Rohingya Muslim was in the hands of people smugglers in Thailand, and had fallen severely ill. The only way for him to be released was to somehow find the money to pay a ransom.

“The man said: ‘If you don’t pay money, he will die… I was so upset. How did he get into the hands of the brokers? How did he become so ill?’” she said, her eyes downcast while sitting in her dank and crumbling one-room temporary home in Thet KelPyin displacement camp, a few kilometres outside Sittwe.

They found an employer in Malaysia willing to pay about $1,600 in exchange for Mamed Rohim’s labour. That was over a year ago and Rohim is still working to repay the debt. He only manages to send over about $50 every two to three months, which the family uses to repay their own debts. 

Since fleeing their home in Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine State in western Myanmar from which they are now barred, the family - seven other children and an asthmatic husband - is struggling to make ends meet. But Husaina says Rohim’s plight continues to haunt her. 

“Even though I want to send other children on the boat so they could find jobs, I’m really worried about the brokers so I dare not,” she said, as a Rohingya neighbour joined in with a similar tale.

Waves of Rohingya Muslims have fled communal violence and apartheid-like conditions in Myanmar in recent years, many of them swept up in trafficking rings, some of which hold men like Rohim for ransom, making threats to their impoverished families that their loved ones will be killed.

But human rights groups say there has been a dramatic drop in the number of Rohingya leaving Myanmar this year. They attribute this to a crackdown on human trafficking by countries such as Thailand and Malaysia and the political changes at home following the National League for Democracy’s landslide election win in November.

The Myanmar government does not recognise the 1.1 million Rohingya as citizens and calls them “Bengalis,” to suggest they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. The group is banned from travel within Myanmar and faces restrictions on access to education and healthcare.

Experiences such as Husaina’s are common among the Rohingya, confined to the squalid displacement camps outside Sittwe. The stories are shared among residents, making many fearful of the multi-day journey. Most of the Rohingya this correspondent spoke to say they are now too scared to attempt it. 

“There have been very few boats since the sailing season started in October and none at all this year, 2016. The key reason is that smugglers have no option for disembarkation due to Thailand being virtually closed. Another is the situation in Malaysia (where) there are regular immigration raids,” Chris Lewa of the Arakan Project, a Rohingya advocacy group which tracks migration, told Myanmar Now.

Malaysian police have carried out arrests of asylum seekers queuing up at the offices of the U.N. refugee agency in the last week or so, and some 2,500 Rohingya are currently held in immigration detention centres across Malaysia, Lewa said.

“The majority of Rohingya who arrived over the last two, three years are unregistered and jobs have become really difficult to find… The community feels very vulnerable,” she added.

Matthew Smith, executive director of Thailand-based human rights group Fortify Rights, agrees numbers leaving Rakhine have dropped, even though it is difficult to quantify the decrease in departures due to the clandestine nature of the voyages.

He warned, however, that the transnational trafficking rings have not been dismantled and “are poised to resume their activities at the first opportunity.”

HOPE KEEPS SOME IN MYANMAR

Since 2012 - when communal violence between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya displaced some 140,000 people, an overwhelming majority of them Muslims - tens of thousands have left Rakhine State by boat. 

What began decades ago as a journey that would take weeks on rickety boats, has in recent years become a mass people trafficking and smuggling business. The trafficking grew to such a scale that it lead to a crackdown by Thai and Malaysian authorities last year.

In Thet Kel Pyin, home to some 5,600 displaced people, most of the Rohingya who have stayed behind have now settled down to a life of daily survival and a feeling that segregation is becoming more and more permanent.

Displaced teenagers now go to a high school near the camp that did not exist two years ago, and aid agencies as well as the government has set up more schools and clinics in and near the camps. 

Despite continued government restrictions, some Rohingya have not left because they are holding out hope for the new government led by Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD, said Smith of Fortify Rights.

“Many Muslims in Rakhine State tell us they hope Daw Suu will usher in a better day for them. Anything, they say, will be better than the past,” he said.

This hope is held despite the fact that the Rakhine State parliament is dominated by the virulently anti-Muslim Arakan National Party (ANP). The NLD itself failed to field a single Muslim candidate and has refused to condemn the persecution faced by the Rohingya, who are viewed with suspicion by many in Myanmar. 

Sultan, 65, said the NLD government now offers the best hope for change. He says he is too old to go anywhere and refuses to countenance sending his daughters away, even though life in the camp is a far cry from his old life as the owner of three small businesses and a brick house in Sittwe.

He now goes around selling 150-kyat (12 cents) tooth powder in the villages and camps, driving a motorcycle a friend has bought for him.

“I feel really desolate over losing our right to vote, but I have hopes that things would improve under the new government,” he said, surrounded by his wife and seven daughters, the youngest of whom was just 26 days old.

The Thein Sein government took away the Rohingya’s last official identity papers last year, and with it their right to vote, prompting an outcry from the international community, who have been providing aid to the Rohingya.

Sultan said, “We are really thankful for the international community for helping us and I know we are still alive because of their help. But we want to stand on our own two feet. We just want to go back to where we were before.”

TALES OF ABUSE

For others, the tales of abuse during the boat journey are a powerful deterrent. Win Naing, a 43-year-old with three young children under the age of five, said, “What would my children and my wife do if something happened to me on the boat or in Thailand? I would rather die here.”

Kawri Mullah, Husaina’s neighbour, concurs. About six weeks ago, the 25-year-old father of two decided to leave the camp, desperate for a stable income that odd jobs cannot provide. But he has abandoned the plan for now after thinking it over, he told Myanmar Now.

His decision was influenced by what happened to his brother-in-law, who left the camp a year and a half ago and was sold by his broker to a butcher in Thailand for $850.

“He left with only two packs of energy biscuits. When they reached Thailand, a butcher apparently liked that my brother-in-law looks big and strong,” Mullah said.

After months of no pay and little to eat, the brother-in-law ran away to find another employer, but the butcher found him, and threatened and took him away, according to Mullah. That was nearly five months ago and the last time they heard from him. He wasn’t able to send any money back.

“I’m really scared after hearing his story. How can you live like that? I have two children and a wife. Here, even if I die, I have my family near me,” he said.

Ei Cho Khine once had dreams of becoming a tour guide. As a student back in her village in Magwe Region in central Myanmar, she would often encounter groups of foreigners being led by tour guides while helping her parents at their Bein moke snack stall.

“My dream was to be a tour guide so I wanted to study English and computers, which is why I moved to Yangon,” she said, recalling how in 2000, at the age of 19, she headed for the country’s then-capital.  

Since then, however, her hopes have floundered. She arrived in Yangon empty-handed and had to find cheap housing and take any available work to make ends meet. For the past 16 years she has toiled in one of the many garment factories in Hlaing Tharyar Industrial Zone on Yangon’s northwestern outskirts. 

“When I moved here I had ambitions. I had no intention of working in a garment factory but I couldn't afford to keep studying English. Now it's only about the money,” she said wearily.

Ei Cho Khine's story is typical of the tens of thousands of people who move to the country’s commercial capital every year to escape rural poverty. Many of them of end up in Hlaing Tharyar’s slums, which are home to some 700,000 people.

The process of rural to urban migration is likely to accelerate as Myanmar’s economy grows following democratic and economic reforms, while the new National League for Democracy (NLD) government is likely to attract more foreign investment and the prospect of city jobs. 

Urban planning experts warn that Yangon is ill-prepared for the rapid influx of poor internal migrants and the unruly urbanisation this will bring. 

They urge the government to come up with policies and measures to provide cheap housing and economic opportunities for the new arrivals. 

“If you don't have a proper response to urbanisation then you run a very big risk of widespread slums forming, of rising social inequality, an increase in gated communities, negative environmental consequences and urban poverty,” said Jack Finegan, urban programme specialist at UN-Habitat. 

He said authorities should take measures now if Yangon’s housing and infrastructure expansion is to keep up with population growth.

BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG CITY

Most of those moving from rural areas to Yangon are young people of working age who are abandoning the agriculture sector, where work is seasonal and underpaid, said Michael Slingsby, former UN-Habitat representative for Afghanistan, now an urban development and poverty advisor. 

“In the city, there are opportunities to do something. Families have multiple sources of income and you have the possibility to work most of the year,” he told Myanmar Now.

With increased connectivity between cities and villages brought on by mobile phones and the internet, young people in rural areas learn about modern city life from relatives living there, prompting many to move. For some, the bright lights of the city promise freedom from the constraints of Myanmar’s conservative rural society.
    
“Now, I'm learning a lot and I've got freedom to do what I want. My parents aren't here to control me,” said Khin Myat Noe Swe, 20, a garment factory worker in Hlaing Tharyar, who moved 5 years ago after hearing about the garment jobs in Yangon from her cousin.

When she first left Myothit, a town in Magwe Region, for Hlaing Tharyar, she lived in a 10-by-10 foot hostel room that she shared with three other workers. They ate, slept and washed in the hostel, which provided cheap accommodation to newly arrived migrants; its 14 rooms housed 56 people who shared three toilets. 

Her living situation has markedly improved since then. She now lives in accommodation provided by Thone Pan Hla, a not-for-profit organisation which focuses on the welfare of women garment workers where she lives with other, single women of her own age.

While some are drawn to the city by its opportunities, others are pushed there by the difficult circumstances in their villages: a failed harvest or indebtedness that may lead to loss of land, or the destruction wrought by natural disaster.

Kyi Soe has lived in a bamboo hut in Nyaung Yar, a slum area in Hlaing Tharyar, for 19 years. He has seen many migrants arrive over the years, but said the slums here swelled overnight after Cyclone Nargis devastated Ayeyarwady Delta in 2008. Myanmar’s worst-ever disaster killed an estimated 138,000 people and destroyed the livelihoods and assets of many more farmers.

“We live from hand to mouth and the cost of living goes up day by day. All of my wage is spent on just surviving,” he said, adding that in recent months, rumours have been circulating that the Nyaung Yar’s several thousand residents will be forcibly evicted by the government. 

“Now, I am really anxious, I worry that when I’m at work my house will be destroyed by the government; the same thing they've done to other squatters in Yangon,” he said.

REFORMS SPEED UP URBAN GROWTH

As in many developing countries, urbanisation in Myanmar is seen as a logical and important step for its economic and social development. Urban incomes are higher and health care and education are more easily accessible to city dwellers. Industries and business can develop in thriving cities, which are also home to a rising middle class.

Due to its isolation under the former military regime, urbanisation in Myanmar has lagged behind; 70 percent of the nation still lives in rural areas, making it the third-least urbanised country in Southeast Asia. Following democratic reforms and drastic steps to modernise and open up the economy in recent years, GDP growth is taking off, reaching 8.4 percent in 2015. 

According to UN-Habitat in Myanmar, Yangon’s population is set to grow at 4 percent annually and could expand from around 5.7 million residents now to more than 11 million in 2040. Much of this growth will come from rural migrants finding their way to the city, experts said. 

“With Myanmar opening up, there will be more non-agricultural jobs, so people will be heading from rural to urban areas. This is just an irreversible trend and there’s nothing anybody can do about it,” said Mitchiko Ito, programme manager of International Organisation for Migration.

“It's a global trend, but what's special about Myanmar's case is that it in the past this hasn't happened at the rate of other countries, so it will now happen quickly.”

LEARNING FROM NEIGHBOURS

After five decades of army rule, which saw the regime move the government capital to Naypyitaw, Yangon’s infrastructure and housing sectors are poorly developed, its crumbling colonial-era downtown is neglected, and its transport system dysfunctional. 

Yet, Yangon is a clean slate for urban planners when compared to mega cities in the region, such as Bangkok, Manila and Jakarta, where authorities have tried to manage rapid urban growth and modern city development decades earlier. 

Several experts who spoke to Myanmar Now said Yangon’s authorities now have a brief window to learn from the successes and mistakes of these cities in order to achieve sustainable urban growth that also provides adequate living conditions for migrants. 

Effective, cheap housing solutions for the new city dwellers should be the first priority for Yangon authorities, they said. 

“Urban poverty is difficult to address so prevention is easier than curing. There is a very good opportunity for Yangon to take stock of what hasn't worked (elsewhere) and how it can plan for a better integration of new migrants into the city in the future,” said Finegan, of UN-Habitat.

Yangon has experienced a real estate boom since President Thein Sein’s quasi-civilian government took office in 2011, this has driven up property and rent prices across the city, including in slum areas.

Yangon Region authorities said they are taking measures to provide affordable housing for the poor. In the 2015/16 budget year, authorities commissioned the construction of 10,160 ‘low cost’ apartments, but officials acknowledge that with each apartment costing around US$9,000, they would offer little opportunity to those living in slums. 

“We've tried to sell them to low income earners but they couldn't afford them, they were too expensive for the poorest,” said Min Aung Aye, deputy director of the Housing Development Division of the Department of Urban and Housing Development.

Subsequently, the government decided some of the new housing would be made available as rental apartments for the lowest income groups; officials are now drafting eligibility criteria and pricing models according to income.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING, NOT EVICTIONS

Despite Yangon’s authorities public commitment to developing affordable housing, some activists and politicians question the government’s approach, saying its housing policies are ineffective, while slum dwellers usually face evictions rather than support.
Yangon authorities are accused of routinely cracking down on what are deemed “illegal squatter” areas. Often, security forces are ordered to forcibly evict slums, an approach that activists say violates the poor’s land and tenure rights. 

Activists say the practice worsened under the Thein Sein government and in January authorities twice sent in police and bulldozers to clear squatters communities on the outskirts of Yangon, destroying hundreds of homes and condemning families to the streets. 

There is hope that the incoming NLD government, which won a huge mandate in the November election, will end the forced eviction of squatters and controversial land grabs.
Although NLD officials have said little about specifics, the party’s 2015 election manifesto outlines such reforms.

“We will establish, as quickly as possible, a programme for the rehousing of homeless migrants, who have moved to the cities as a result of natural disasters, economic opportunities, and land confiscation,” the manifesto says.

Win Maung, a Yangon Region lawmaker from Hlaing Tharyar representing the NLD told Myanmar Now: “Using armed force to destroy people's homes simply because they have no legal rights is not a realistic solution to this (housing) problem.” 

Van Liza, director of Yangon-based non-profit organisation Women for the World, said government policies on land tenure and low-cost housing had failed to help the poor. “Who are these projects really for? Those with money,” she said of the affordable housing developments.

Women for the World, which Van Liza co-founded, ran a pilot scheme in a Yangon slum that established a collectivised loan scheme. The community used it to fund small infrastructure projects in the area and the scheme provides low interest rate loans for individual households who use the money to upgrade their homes. 

“Community-based saving is a key tool that empowers people. Poor people don’t want a free house, they just want to be able to own some land,” she said. 

A successful model used in other developing countries gives slum dwellers de-facto tenure or actual legal tenure, after which the government provides infrastructure to the area. This allows people to invest in upgrading their houses and improve the neighbourhood, said Finegan, of UN-Habitat.

“The key issue is tenure. People need certainty that they will be able to stay in place. Slum upgrading has proved effective when we allow people to do it themselves,” he said. 

Courtesy of Myanmar Now

Sitting in a tea-shop next door to the National League for Democracy’s Hlaing Tharyar Township office, Oo Win Maung offers some advice for non-residents thinking of heading into the slums of his constituency in the evening.

“It's getting dark now, you've got a little while still but I wouldn't be down there after dark,” he said referring to Nyaung Yar, a notorious slum in Hlaing Tharyar, a township on Yangon’s northwestern outskirts where he won a regional parliament seat for the NLD in the November elections. 

Nyaung Yar is a pocket of thousands of thatched bamboo houses by the Pun Hlaing River, deep within Hlaing Tharyar. Most of the shacks are only 2 meters wide, with their wafer-thin walls the only thing to provide a sense of privacy between neighbours.

Barefoot children play and street dogs nonchalantly wade through foul black sludge that pools around the stilted homes which have no piped water or toilets.

In the slum, crime is rife. An area on the banks of the Pun Hlaing River known as Thei Kwin is renowned for its criminal gangs, who intimidate locals and extort businesses, said Hla Htay, an NLD party member in Nyaung Yar.

If it's not criminal gangs intimidating the residents of Nyaung Yar, it's the outgoing Union Solidarity and Development Party government which, despite having to hand over office to the NLD come April, have made repeated threats to evict residents, he said.

Nyaung Yar’s population swelled when Cyclone Nargis devastated the Irrawaddy Delta in 2008, killing an estimated 138,000 people and displacing millions.

A woman in her 60s, sitting on the bamboo floor of her shack nursing her baby grandson- whose round face is painted yellow with thanakha- said even though she left her hometown of Bogale in the delta after the cyclone, her uncertain future means she still lives in fear.

“I know this isn’t my land and if the owner tells me to go, then I have to but we have nowhere to go. I can’t afford to rent a place, we barely have enough money to live off,” she said.

Just 500 meters up the main road from Nyaung Yar is the regal entrance to the gated Pun Hlaing golf and housing estate. According to its website, substantial villas on plots of more than 800 square metres provide “the country's most beautiful homes… an exclusive peaceful oasis, all with a panoramic view of the beautifully landscaped community which surrounds you.”

Inequality is a hallmark of mega-cities in many developing countries, where the consequences of rapid urbanisation have gone unchecked and the poor are left to fend for themselves, while an urban elite adopts a secure, cosmopolitan lifestyle.

The microcosm that is Hlaing Tharyar reflects just this sort of urban trend.

One issue exacerbating urban inequality is the fact that many international development agencies and NGOs traditionally prioritise giving aid to the rural poor, though the consequences of urban poverty are often more severe, said Michael Slingsby, an urban development and poverty advisor and former UN-Habitat representative for Afghanistan.

“Urban poverty is very different from rural poverty. In the city, if you don't have any kyats in your pocket you can't survive. You have to pay for rent, housing, water, electricity. In the rural areas you can trade food and many things come for free,” he said.

Well-planned cities enable social cohesion between residents from a range of backgrounds, helping break down barriers of race, class and ethnicity. Conversely, when cities don’t plan for increases in population it drives up house and land prices, creating “rich and poor ghettos” said Jack Finegan, Urban Programme Specialist at UN-Habitat.

“You get a very unequal society and that inequality is manifested where people live- in our neighbourhoods and it means there can be less capacity for empathy and less development for all society,” he said.