Coal-fired power plant in Myanmar backed by China that villagers feel powerless to oppose
- Health and environmental concerns have dogged a township in eastern Myanmar for years, but authorities are preoccupied with the nation’s current turmoil
Almost two decades ago, in a small hillside town in southern Shan State, Myanmar’s largest coal-run power plant was built. Tigyit has been forever changed by this joint venture between the China National Heavy Machinery Corporation and a group of Myanmar businessmen affiliated with the country’s ruling generals who were responsible for the coup d’état on February 1, which ended the nation’s all-too-brief flirtation with democracy.
About 60 hectares of land were confiscated to build the Tigyit plant, yet local communities surrounding the site, such as the Pa’O and Taungyo people, say they have seen no compensation for the land appropriated for the power station or for the adjacent forests that have been razed to make space for mining the coal that fuels the plant.
“We venerate the forest,” says Pa’O farmer Daw May Thant. “It was inhabited by traditional nat deities.”
Inside her wooden stilt house opposite the power plant, the 60-year-old stores bags of onions and garlic to be sold at the local market. “When we wanted to catch fish or birds, we needed to ask the nat spirits for permission,” but now, she says, lamenting the loss of these spirits as she throws her arms in the direction of the power plant, “there’s nothing left”.
Myanmar has 17 large-scale coal deposits, with total resources of more than 500 million tonnes, mostly of sub-bituminous rank. Combustion of this lower-grade coal leads to hazardous emissions of sulphur oxides, nitrogen oxides and sulphur.
“Companies are mining non-stop on private land, taking advantage of the turmoil” which has spread across the country after the coup, says Tigyit local Sai Sam. With no government authorities paying attention, let alone regulating, “the mining has dried out the local springs, leaving us with even more polluted water”.