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New site for landslide-affected people lacks adequate roads, drainage.

Mandalay:  Christian clergy have joined protests by ethnic Chins displaced by landslides, angry at the local government plan to re-house them on a site that lacks adequate roads and drainage.

Around 1,000 people took part in protests in Hakha, capital of Myanmar’s impoverished Chin State, Jan. 5 and 6.

“We are going to continue our protests if the local government doesn’t respond to our demands,” Lai Cung, a protest leader and pastor from the Hakha Khuahlul Baptist Church in Chin state told ucanews.com Jan. 8.

In Christian-majority Chin, flash floods and landslides destroyed hundreds of houses and displaced thousands of people in July and August 2015.

A mountainous area, Chin state is one of Myanmar's least developed regions, and its 73 percent poverty rate is the highest in the country.

Some 2,000 people who were displaced by the landslides still remain in relief camps and in the homes of relatives, reliant on aid from the United Nations and voluntary groups for food and other essential items.

“Displaced people have no problem with food rations but they want to get out from relief camps and start living in the new relocation area with a proper allocation of land, roads and drainage systems,” the Rev. Tluang Ceu, secretary of the Hakha Rescue Committee, told ucanews.com.

At least 900 households and six Christian Churches were completely or partially destroyed in Hakha, where around 50,000 inhabitants reside.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church reported that 32 of their churches had been damaged.

“We are still looking for new lands to build churches to replace those which were the worst hit by landslides. Other Churches that were partially destroyed can’t be repaired so far,” said the Rev. Lai Cung.

The landslide-affected churches still remain untouched after geological surveys conducted by experts found that several areas in the Hakha area were not suitable for continued habitation, having been deemed as high-risk for future landslides.

At least 106 people died and more than 1.3 million people were critically affected by floods and landslides across Myanmar during July and August.

Almost 300,000 households have been or remain displaced according to the United Nations.

Source: UCAN