Reggie Stration
Senior Member
- Messages
- 1,421
- Solutions
- 2
- Reaction score
- 1,993
Watching the news, I'm sure everybody is aware of the devastating 7.7 earthquake that has struck central Myanmar very close to Mandalay, a city of 1.2 million people.
News seems very slow to trickle out of the country where the military regime in control keeps tight reins on the news media and social media but a shallow earthquake of that magnitude close to a city of that size is undoubtedly catastrophic.
The Burmese people have endured so much over recent decades. The brutal military regime governing the country is currently in the midst of a long running civil war which has also reduced tourism to a tiny percentage of what it was. For such a poor country with such limited resources to start with this latest disaster will be hard to recover from.
I was lucky to have visited the country as a an independent traveler on two separate occasions, once in 2006 and later in 2014 in more hopeful times. The people were beautiful and welcoming and the culture and ancient temples throughout the country were truly spectacular. Many of those ancient magnificent landmarks will now be in ruins also.
Here are a few of my images from the country in happier times.
Mingun Paya, begun in 1790 was to have been the world"s largest stupa. Work on it was abandoned in 1819 and it was struck by an earthquake in 1839 ( likely the cause of the crack seen on the left). This is about 10 km from Mandalay.
Dusk at the U-Bein bridge near Amarapura, not far from Mandalay. Reputedly the longest teak bridge in the world at 1.7 km.
Hot air balloon over Bagan, a vast plain of some 2500 temples, many of them previously damaged from an earthquake in 2016.
If you'd like to see a video slideshow of more of my Myanmar images, here's a link. https://www.msphoto.ca/Myanmar_gallery-vid.html
Here's a link to a page describing my trips. https://www.msphoto.ca/Myanmar.htm
https://www.msphoto.ca/
News seems very slow to trickle out of the country where the military regime in control keeps tight reins on the news media and social media but a shallow earthquake of that magnitude close to a city of that size is undoubtedly catastrophic.
The Burmese people have endured so much over recent decades. The brutal military regime governing the country is currently in the midst of a long running civil war which has also reduced tourism to a tiny percentage of what it was. For such a poor country with such limited resources to start with this latest disaster will be hard to recover from.
I was lucky to have visited the country as a an independent traveler on two separate occasions, once in 2006 and later in 2014 in more hopeful times. The people were beautiful and welcoming and the culture and ancient temples throughout the country were truly spectacular. Many of those ancient magnificent landmarks will now be in ruins also.
Here are a few of my images from the country in happier times.
Mingun Paya, begun in 1790 was to have been the world"s largest stupa. Work on it was abandoned in 1819 and it was struck by an earthquake in 1839 ( likely the cause of the crack seen on the left). This is about 10 km from Mandalay.
Dusk at the U-Bein bridge near Amarapura, not far from Mandalay. Reputedly the longest teak bridge in the world at 1.7 km.
Hot air balloon over Bagan, a vast plain of some 2500 temples, many of them previously damaged from an earthquake in 2016.
If you'd like to see a video slideshow of more of my Myanmar images, here's a link. https://www.msphoto.ca/Myanmar_gallery-vid.html
Here's a link to a page describing my trips. https://www.msphoto.ca/Myanmar.htm
https://www.msphoto.ca/
Last edited:
