YANGON: At least 15 people drowned on Sunday while crossing a flooded causeway in Myanmar to reach a Buddhist temple for a festival, rescue workers said. The tragedy unfolded as thousands of worshippers tried to reach the Kyeik Hne pagoda, which lies on a rocky outcrop around three kilometres (two miles) off the coast near the town of Thanbyuzayat in southern Mon state.
Local officials said some died when they tried to cross the poorly marked causeway, which is only around four metres wide, while the tide was too high.
“We normally allow the people to come at 6:30 am but they would not listen to us and started trying to walk across too early,” local official Nai Sahai Eain said.
More drowned later when they were jostled from the crowded walkway into the sea. Ko Kyaw Thu, an emergency responder from Thanbyuzayat, said that 15 bodies had been taken to hospital and three people were still missing. Local resident Nai Wona said the causeway was not marked out clearly enough, making it hard to navigate.
Meanwhile, in predawn darkness in western Myanmar thousands of devotees scramble to the top of a mountain said to be home to a spirit guarding 500 mythical ducks to mark the Tazaungdaing festival of light last week.
The full-moon that marks the end of the rainy season is celebrated across Buddhist-majority Myanmar in explosions of colour, with fireworks, lanterns and hot air balloons. Celebrations have been muted this year, with much of the country in uprising against the February coup and escalating violence between junta troops and dissidents.
But western Rakhine state has remained largely calm as a ceasefire between local insurgents and the military holds, allowing thousands of intrepid souls to climb “500-duck mountain” for the first time in years.
Devotees start under the stars, lighting their way with their phones, gripping the trunks or roots of trees as they scramble up the hillside, friends pulling each other up at difficult stretches.
“Although it is tiring, I am happy because there are a lot of people here,” Tun Shwe Tha, who started his ascent at midnight, said. “And it helps me eat well,” he says, laughing.
The 66-year-old says it took him more than three hours to reach the top of the mountain — guarded, locals claim, by a female “nat” or local spirit which watches over the area’s ducks.
The spirits have rules for those who visit their realm — climbers should not eat duck the day before or after they visit the mountain, and are forbidden from swearing while making the arduous ascent.
“I was told at home that this mountain is very sensitive in terms of spirituality because the guardian Nat is very sensitive,” says Wai Yan Aung.
“I was told to be very careful of speaking and to not insult.” Thursday was the first time in three years that devotees were allowed to climb. In previous years the state was wracked by fighting between the military and Arakan Army insurgents fighting for autonomy for the ethnic Rakhine. – AFP
