British Army in Burma

THE BRITISH ARMY IN BURMA 1945 (SE 1824) Lord Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia, with Major General G N Wood in a jeep during a visit to the 25th Indian Division, January 1945. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205205135 Frightfully unqualified for anything, Mountbatten made numerous ghastly mistakes. His appointment in…

Flooding on the Irawaddy

These 2 images from the Landsat 8 satellite show the Irawaddy River in Myanmar; the upper image was taken during a normal August and the lower was taken in August of 2015.

In the upper image, the Irawaddy is a classic braided stream, wandering back and forth between a number of channels with bars and islands of sediment in the gaps in-between. Heavy rains and Tropical Cylone Komen struck the country in July, causing significant flooding on this river and bringing it up to the level where it covers virtually all of the bars in the channel. You can also see that the smaller tributary channels are swollen as well.

More than 100 people reportedly died in the flooding and large amounts of farmland have been lost for the year.

Floods like these are natural features; in fact the bars probably testify to previous floods. When a river like this reaches flood stage, it submerges the piles of sediment in the channel and begins mobilizing that sediment. Floods help take sediment out to sea and if they are not anchored by vegetation, the bars and channels can be moved around and reconstructed in the process.

-JBB

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The Mighty Mekong

Kratie may be the capital of the province of the same name, but it feels like a very small town. Set along the Mekong River in eastern Cambodia, Kratie seems quiet compared to larger, more touristed cities like Siem Reap, Phnom Penh and…