The Burmese military junta and the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) have begun joint investigations into the serial bomb blasts.
The series of explosions killed four workers, injured over 12 and damaged seven buildings and 10 vehicles on April 17 in the Myitsone dam project on the Irrawaddy River, or Mali Hka in Burma’s northern Kachin State, said project sources.
Investigations have revealed that of 39 bombs planted at five different places in the project site 27 exploded.
The damage, include the two-storey building in Lungga Zup-Myitkyitna side and a hall and five small apartments in Gwi Htu-Myitkyina. Among the damaged project vehicles, there was a Burmese Army truck, a bulldozer and a six-wheel truck, said the sources.
The explosions also destroyed a large electric generator, a garage, two entrance gates and a 2000 gallon fuel tank in the project site, added the sources.
A series of bombs went off in five different places in the dam site between Lungga Zup village and Chyinghkrang village, around 20 miles north of Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State.
Officials investigating the blasts have indicated that a total of 39 bombs were planted in the project site of which 27 exploded. The rest did not.
The damaged buildings housed mainly Chinese project technicians and engineers with security provided by Burmese security forces, said residents near the dam site.
Four persons were killed and more than 12 injured in the blasts. All the victims were company workers of the Chinese state-owned China Power Investment Corporation (CPI), said investigators.
In the wake of the blasts, over 300 Chinese workers along with the victims fled to the China border along the Stilwell Road, or Ledo Road--- Myitkyina-Waingmaw-Kambaiti Road in four buses, said eyewitnesses.
Bombs damaged two-storey building in Lungga Zup in the Myitsone hydroelectric power project site, 18 miles north of Myitkyina, capital of Kachin State, Northern Burma. Photo: Kachin News Group.
The inspection of the Myitsone hydroelectric power project was jointly done by the CPI and the Burmese firm Asia World Company as of late 2006. Construction officially started on December 21, last year.
A day after the bomb blasts, the junta and the Kachin Independence Organization, the last remaining Kachin armed group, which has rejected the junta-proposed Border Guard Force began joint investigations into the explosions in the hydropower project site, said KIO’s sources.
The junta has vowed to continue with the hydropower project.
So far, no group or organization has either been indentified or claimed responsibility for the explosions.
