By Libby Hogan
MINDAT, Chin State — It’s been another bad year of flooding in Burma. This year, however, the monsoon season’s heavy downpours and swelling rivers didn’t just take a toll on people, animals and crops — it also claimed one casualty in the form of a golden pagoda in Magwe Division. Shocking video of the sacred Buddhist monument sliding into flooded river waters circulated widely on the internet last month, with the cries of distraught local residents clearly audible as it sank from view.
But just west of this region, communities in the far-flung hills of Chin State were settled in for a silent battle with the annual, intense seasonal rains. Over the past few years, Chin State has suffered particularly erratic rainfall.
A throw-away comment by my translator as we drove through the mountains in between Mount Victoria and Mindat in southern Chin State alerted me to the seriousness of this climate variability. In a clearing not far from the road, sawdust peppered the ground under the stilts of a cluster of new homes.
“A new village?” I asked. Naing Kee Shin shook his head. “No, a relocated village. It’s being rebuilt after most of the houses were lost two years ago in the big landslide.” What struck me was how 26-year-old Naing Kee Shin spoke about the incident with such nonchalance: “It happens a lot now, in the last few years.”
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