Aizawl – Devastated by rats that destroyed crops from farmlands, the people in Burma's western Chin State are yet faced with another disaster – health hazard.

Mizzima correspondent, who since early September visited regions in Chin state witnesses people in at least five villages of Thangtalan Township suffering from various diseases including diarrhoea and skin diseases.

About 30 to 50 people in each village in Longkywethe, Longkywepi, Ngaphaipi, Ngalai and Lailang villages in Thangtalan Township have suffered from skin diseases and diarrhoea.

"Diarrhoea and skin diseases are rampant in our village. Most children and adults are suffering from diarrhoea," a public health worker in Longkywethe village said.

A farmer in Ngaphaipi village said that about 30 villagers are suffering from diarrhoea and skin diseases.

The cause of these diseases, which seem to be endemic in nature, is related to acute scarcity of food in the region, a local public health worker said. Villagers due to scarcity of food are forced to rely on corns in place of their staple food rice, produced on shifting farmland. This is causing indigestion and diarrhoea, he said.

"Boiled corn is making us suffer from such ailments. Most children and elders are suffering from indigestion because of this food. Long time dependence on such food is also leading to malnourishment," he added.

He also said that at least four villagers have died of diarrhoea and cholera.

The villagers in Ngaphaipi who used to have three meals a day are now hardly able to scrounge a meal of gruel and boiled corn given the food scarcity.

A villager from Lailam village which has 160 households said, "Only three households in our village can afford normal intake of rice. A family in our village had nothing to eat for three days and two nights in the first week of September. The village authorities (VPDC) gave them three tins of rice."

Some villagers who are facing severe financial hardship are fleeing to the neighbouring Indo-Burmese border regions and some are trying to survive by selling their domestic animals.

"Thanks to the aid supplies provided by the church community and social organizations in exile, the villagers in this region are able to survive in a famine like situation," he quoted an 80-year old from Longkywethe village as saying.

"We are surviving on the relief supplies being provided by the church community and other charity organizations in exile. We didn't know what to do and no one cared about us," the old man said.

The elder added that in 1958, about 30 villagers in Lonekywethe village died when the bamboo bloomed and rats multiplied after eating the bamboo flowers leading to famine. Bamboo flowers every 50 years when its life cycle comes to an end. Rats eat the flowers increasing to their fertility. The rodents multiply and swarm over cultivated fields devouring crops leading to famine.