Our final destination is Amara Pura, the town in between Mandalay and Sagaing, prior to crossing the river from Mandalay side. On the way to Sagaing we noticed how much of its roads were out of shape due to the town being directly on the path of the fault line.
If we were to give a judgement on which city or town suffered most from the quake as a percentage of all the households, we have to call Amara Pura out. In Mandalay, we had one building out of every ten fallen. Yes the damage in $ terms is higher as the buildings were higher and larger. In Sagaing one out of every five or six buildings had collapsed. In Amara Pura, every alternate building along the main street is gone.
SMEs
Amara Pura is famous for making the traditional ‘Chaik Hta Mein’ or sarong with artworks. Now none of these SMEs and businesses were left standing. The heritage of this weaving houses may be gone as the forever association between the town and the craft.
Finale
We were extremely fortunate to have a great opportunity to have this documentary tour of the quake within two weeks of the actual event. Anytime later, we would not have a chance to see as much devastation as the clean up and recovery would have removed any remaining traces of how bad the quake has been.
The sadness of the situation is that based on evidence, there was a mismatch between help being offered and the needs of the displaced in Nay Pyi Taw as International aid efforts conveniently skip the civil servants. And Amara Pura needs more help too, to safe its heritage to the nation.
