Erosion from Laymyo River an annual menace for Minbya Twsp village

By DMG 27 Oct 2021

DMG Newsroom
27 October 2021, Minbya 

Local residents say embankments must be built along the shores of the Laymyo River near Letma village in Minbya Township, Arakan State, where annual landslides destroy homes, farmland and livelihoods. 

There were 105 houses in Letma village previously, but only 45 houses remain due to riverbank erosion, said U Myo Min Tun, head of the village. 

“Other villages do not face land erosion. Only our village faces it annually,” he said. “The landslide this year is worse, but most houses have already moved to locations far from the river due to the landslide last year. That’s why no houses were destroyed in this year’s landslide.” 

Riverbank erosion at Letma village has occurred for more than a decade, U Myo Min Tun told DMG, adding that if it continues over the coming years, villagers will face more difficulties. 

“About 100 feet washed away a year. If it is happening every year in the future, villagers will lose their land to live on. It is not easy for them to build new houses because they are poor,” he said. 

“In 2014 and 2015, we built concrete piles and placed stones at the riverbank to prevent landslides. So, we want authorities to build an embankment to prevent bank erosion,” he added. 

Local resident Daw Ma Tin Win lost her house and farmland during a landslide in 2016. 

“ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross] provided humanitarian aid the year our house was destroyed due to a landslide. We have not gotten anything subsequently. Our family depended on the farmland for our livelihood, so I do not know other jobs. Now, I am working as a labourer at other people’s farms,” she said. 

Some villagers whose houses were destroyed by landslides are now living at the bottom of a mountain outside the village, while others are living in huts built on farmlands outside the village. 

U Ni Thar Aung, another Letma villager, said he moved to higher ground in the village after his house and farmland were destroyed by a landslide, but he worried that the same fate might befall his new home. 

“I was sad when my house and farmland were washed away during the landslide. They were my life’s savings,” he said. “However, I tried to build a new house in the village. The landslide this year is coming near my new home. If our house is hit by a landslide this year, I will have no place to live. I am over 80 years old now. So, how can I save to build a new house?”