Fire destroys three boarding houses of poor Myanmar children

Mae Sot, Tak:- Three boarding houses of underprivileged Myanmar children at the well-known Mae Tao Clinic of Ramon Magsaysay Award-winner Cynthia Maung were burned down 6 pm Wednesday.

Officials said the fire spread from the burning of the sugarcane plantation near the Children’s Development Center School run by Cynthia.

About 100 poor Myanmar children, who are studying at the school, stayed at the boarding houses. None of them was injured as they were evacuated in time.

After fire fighters of the Tambon Thasailuad Municipality were alerted of the blaze, they rushed to the scene with fire engines. They also enlisted help of fire fighters from nearby tambons.

However, the fire spread quickly and consumed the three wooden boarding houses. The fire fighters could only contain the blaze from spreading. The boarding houses were burned down in about an hour.

Fire fighters and local villagers help evacuate the children to safe are.

Some of the children testified that they saw burning sugarcane leaves blown to the roof of one of the boarding houses, which was made of dried banana leaves.

The children tried to put out the fire but the strong wind and dried banana leaves made the blaze spread very fast. The children decided to flee from the houses and alerted officials.

The Mae Sot police station and Fourth Infancy Regiment Taskforce in Mae Sot joined force with the Mae Sot border patrol police command to investigate the incident to try to locate the ones who burned the sugarcane plantation.

All the children had to live inside the school temporarily.

Cynthia has been running the Mae Tao Clinic since the 8 August 1988 uprising to help underprivileged Myanmar people along the Thai-Myanmar border.