Meeting on restoring Bagan pagodas destroyed by earthquake

On 24 August 2016 an earthquake in Bagan region destroyed various pagodas and religious buildings. A Technical Expert Team was formed to inspect and review the restoration projects of these structures. The team held its 11th meeting at the Bagan Archaeological Museum yesterday and was joined by Hluttaw representatives, staff from the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Culture and the Department for Archaeology and National Museums and experts from UNESCO.
U Kyaw Oo Lwin, the Director General of the Department for Archaeology and National Musuem, gave the opening address followed by U Aung Myint, Chairman of Myanmar Engineer Association, who gave a speech. Afterwards, representatives from the Myanmar Architecture Association and Myanmar Engineer’s Association reported the status of the restoration of Bagan’s damaged buildings.
This was followed by Mr. Pierre Pichard and Manithaphone Mahaxay, experts from UNESCO, reporting the results of their survey on the damaged buildings. Next, Mr. Predrag Gavrilovic and Rodolfo Lujan presented future restoration projects which will be given priority and U San Oo, Chairman of Myanmar Architecture Association, presented the association’s survey on Bagan’s pagodas.
In the afternoon session of the meeting, the deputy district administrator of NyaungOo District reported the amount of donations received for repairing the damaged pagodas and the status of restoring the pagodas. This was followed by other attendants presenting their report for the restoration status in Bagan.
Bagan, once a significant city in Myanmar, had over 2,200 pagodas, stupas, monastaries and other structures left from the thousands built between the 11th and 13th century.
The earthquake which occurred at 5pm on 24 August last year measured 6.8 on the Richter Scale and ruined 389 pagodas in Bagan and 3,133 pagodas and stupas in the greater Bagan region.–Myanmar News Agency