ENGLISH DEYEA NEWS

By LAWI WENG | Thirteen Palaung tea farm workers were killed in a landslide caused by torrential rain at about 3 a.m. On October 28 at a tea farm in Mongton Township in southern Shan State, said a source from the Palaung Women’s Organization (PWO).

“Part of a hillside broke away and fell down on them. They didn’t have time to escape,” said Lway Nway Hnoung, a member of the PWO, which is based in Mae Sot, Thailand.

“Many villagers are now afraid to go home. It has been raining heavily almost every day and many acres of land have been destroyed,” she said.

The 13 victims—11 men and two women—were from Pan Yen, Loa Mon and Tae Nay villages in Mongton Township in southern Shan State. They routinely slept at the farms where they worked, picking tea leaves for about 1,500 kyat (US $1.20) a day per person.

Tea production is a major part of the local economy in ethnic Palaung regions of Shan State. Most tea farmed in the area is sold to Rangoon, Mandalay and other parts of Burma.

According to Myanmar Tea, some 87,707 metric tons of tea leaves were cultivated in Burma in 2006-2007, of which nearly 70 percent produced green tea. Burmese people consume an average of 0.41 kg of tea per head annually.

Tea production in Burma takes place in the hilly regions of Shan, Kachin, Chin and Karen states, as well as in Sagaing and Mandalay divisions. Shan State is the main tea-growing region with a total sowed area of 67,616 hectares.

These regions are not, however, unfamiliar to landslides during the rainy season. In 2001, a landslide occurred in Namhsan Township in northern Shan State which killed many people and destroyed hundreds of acres of land.