Three killed, two hurt in timber truck accident in Taungup Twsp

By DMG 29 Jan 2022

DMG Newsroom
29 January 2022, Taungup

Three people were killed and two others were injured when a timber truck overturned in Nga Pyaw Daw village, Taungup Township, according to residents.

The truck, which was transporting illegal timber, crashed at about 8 p.m. on January 28.

The people in the vehicle are from Letpan village in Maei town, Letpan village head U Thaung Tin told DMG.

“The funeral for the victims was held today. One of the injured was taken to Maei Hospital. A young one was discharged from the hospital with a minor injury. They are general workers in the village,” U Thaung Tin said on Saturday.

A Letpan villager, who asked not to be named, said that 10 people in two vehicles travelled to a mountain outside the village on Friday morning, returning that evening.

“Each truck carried four tonnes of timber and the vehicle that was leading overturned,” he said.

A man from Maei town provided K3 million each to the deceased victims’ families in Letpan village and paid the medical expenses of those injured, the anonymous source added.

When DMG phoned U Bone Myat Maung, an official with the Maei town Forest Department, seeking comment on the incident, he said about three tonnes of unclaimed timber had been seized at the scene of the accident.

“We heard about the traffic accident at around 9 a.m. and we went to check the scene with the relevant departments, but we found only timber. The timber was seized because illegal logging was uncovered,” he said.

In the first three months of the current fiscal year, there were 43 cases of illegal logging in Arakan State, with Thandwe District recording the highest number of cases, according to the Arakan State Forest Department.