Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal: devil's triangle

Showing posts with label devil's triangle. Show all posts

Monday, January 12, 2026

Myanmar's Scam Cities, modern slavery

Inside Myanmar's scam centers (Golden Triangle), horrible НUМAN ТRAFFIСКING in Asia

Friday, December 15, 2023

Mission: The "Buddha's Lost Children" (film)

David A. Taylor, Tricycle Magazine, Winter 2007; Crystal Q., CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Tough Love Maverick Buddhist monk Khru Ba gives a novice Buddhist monk Thai kickboxing lessons in Northern Thailand, from Buddha's Lost Children.

Monk on a Mission Saving the Orphans of Northern Thailand (full doc)

Buddha's Lost Children: full documentary

(Dhamma Source) June 26, 2023: Buddha's Lost Children is a feature-length documentary film about a Thai Theravada Buddhist monk named Phra Khru Bah Neua Chai Kosittowho -- armed only with his Buddhist faith and skills and master Thai kickboxer skills -- wages an inspirational battle to help save orphaned children, fight drug (meth) abuse, and preserve a vanishing way of life. Director: Mark Verkerk. Learn more and support here: buddhaslostchildren.com

Buddha’s Lost Children is a Dutch film about Theravada Buddhist Thailand, directed by Mark Verkerk, EMS Films, 2006.

As the lights go down, the sound of a stream is heard. The first images show a bare-chested man cross-legged on a tall stone spur in the forest, limbering up his arms and neck in what looks like a cross between meditation and martial arts.

His face is calm, but his body wears a wild constellation of tattoos: calligraphy wriggles down his arms, and a winged horse flies across his chest.

The man is a Thai Theravada Buddhist monk. In the next moment, he’s egging on two boys who are kick boxing. “That’s it!” he cries.

“Kick into his neck.” The documentary Buddha’s Lost Children tells the story of the maverick Buddhist monk and former pro kickboxer Khru Ba and his mission to save forgotten souls at the edge of Thai society — drug-infested communities in the mountainous region of northern Thailand along the Burmese border, near Laos, known as [the drug dealing haven] the Golden Triangle.

“Look at the things they do,” Khru Ba says of the addicted. “Who’ll forgive them? The law of the land doesn’t forgive them, nor does the law of karma....

Only a crazy fool of a monk like me is willing to forgive them.” The hill-tribe ethnic groups of that region — including the Akha, Karen, Yao, and Lisu — have for much of their history been at the mercy of larger forces: drug barons, corrupt Thai officials, disease, and poverty.

They have always lived at the margins: They dress differently from mainstream Thais, speak in different tongues, and hold animist (rather than Buddhist) beliefs. They don’t fit in.

At Khru Ba’s Golden Horse Monastery, he takes their orphaned and abandoned children under his wing and gives them lessons in, among other things, Buddhist Dharma and Thai kickboxing.

“Thai boxing means having a free heart and body; it means not being enslaved to desire or to drugs,” he tells his novices. “Do you understand?”

The boys shout, “Yes!” The young Buddhist novices ride into a village on horseback, saffron robes flapping in their wake, like a gang in a spaghetti Western.

The ritual of receiving alms food from villagers looks almost like a holdup. Khru Ba shouts out his version of karma: Be good, good things come to you, but “if you’re not good, the [animist] spirits will break your neck.”

Mark Verkerk, the Dutch filmmaker who spent three years making the film, says it is about more than an itinerant monk.

“It was important that the film communicate something universal,” Verkerk said by email, “something people could relate to from other cultures — and there’s nothing more universal than raising kids.”

Khru Ba left his own wife and two children after a close friend’s death and a vivid dream that commanded him to open a Buddhist monastery in the mountains of the far north, where one in five youths who turn up for national service are addicted to cheap Western methamphetamines.

Like a spiritual 007, Khru Ba has special permission from the Supreme Patriarch in Bangkok to use whatever methods he deems necessary to address the problems at the kingdom’s edge.

“He’s the only monk to have found a way to operate in this border region,” says Verkerk.

The film, with cinematography that combines sweeping landscapes and intimate views of the region’s culture, has taken honors at various festivals in Europe and North America, and in August (2007) it had its American theatrical pre-release in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It is now available on DVD.

Monk on a Mission - Tricycle: The Buddhist Review

Wednesday, November 30, 2022

Meth addicted MONKS: Meth Awareness Day

Gavin Butler (vice.com, Melbourne, Australia, Nov. 29, 2022, 7:07 pm); Eds., Wisdom Quarterly

The monk, including the abbot, were sent to rehab after failing drug test (Hugh Sitton/Getty).
What's more misguided than becoming addicted (craving/clinging) to delusion-inducing drugs?

Buddhist temple has no monks after they all test positive for METH

The Buddha would blush.

It follows a string of criminal scandals involving Theravada Buddhist monks in Thailand, where authorities are reporting record-breaking quantities of synthetic drugs.

A small Buddhist abbey’s entire coterie of monks was defrocked, dismissed, and sent to rehab this week after every single one of them tested positive for methamphetamine.

All four monks at a temple in Phetchabun province's Bung Sam Phan district, in central Thailand, were forced by police to take urine tests on Monday.

Who's high here? Is it you, or that one, falling asleep during meditation? Or this hyper one?

True Tales of...Fentanyl and Meth (Sam Q.)

All four of them, including the abbot, failed. The monks were subsequently sent to a health clinic to undergo drug rehabilitation, local official Boonlert Thintapthai told the AFP, leaving the temple without "holy" men and raising concerns among local worshippers that they wouldn’t be able to conduct “merit-making” — that is, donating food (dana) to monks as a good deed.

[There are other forms of good deeds (dana, sila, bhavana) besides practicing generosity (dana) and giving to the Sangha, but Thais are addicted to this form of good karma and are more prosperous than neighboring Theravada countries as a result.]

Mr. Boonlert said more monks would be assigned to the temple to allow people to carry out their religious duties.

World News: Buddhist monks keep getting arrested for corruption, murder, and drug trafficking

It’s not clear why police targeted this particular temple, nor these particular monks, to test for drug use — but the action comes amid a broader national campaign to tackle the trafficking of illicit substances.

Thailand (which is part of the Golden Triangle, a place notorious for drug trafficking), like many other nations across Southeast Asia, has in the past two years seen a major uptick in the volume of meth passing through the country.

The Least of Us back cover (Sam Quinones)

Much of that can be traced back to the Golden Triangle — a notorious fountainhead for the synthetic drug trade, where the borders of Thailand, Laos, and Burma (renamed Myanmar by the dictators) meet — and, more specifically, the conflict-riven hills of Burma’s Shan state.

In the wake of the Burmese military coup, which in February 2021 saw the Burmese military overthrow the civilian government and plunge the nation into chaos yet again, record-breaking quantities of both crystal methamphetamine and meth pills, otherwise known as “yaba,” have continued to pour out of the Triangle and flood the region.

Production and trafficking of illegal synthetic substances hit record levels in 2021, with authorities collectively seizing nearly 172 tons of methamphetamine and more than 1 billion yaba tablets.

World News: Burma’s coup has opened the floodgates of the Southeast Asian drug trade

This is not an isolated case of Thai monks behaving badly either. In recent years, the sacred institution of Thai Theravada Buddhism has been tarnished by a series of high-profile arrests and scandals relating to corruption, murder, and drug trafficking among its monastics.

Good Western monk Ajahn Chah in Australia

[EDITORIAL NOTE: A distinction needs to be made between the larger, lazier institutional school called the Maha Nikaya, which accounts for 90% of Thai monks, and the Dhammayut or Thai Forest Tradition of wandering ascetics (practicing the dhutangas or 13 Sane Ascetic Practices), who practice more in accordance with the historical Buddha's instructions, resulting in famous monks of great attainment -- even though some criticize this school as make believe, invented by a royal who wanted to temporarily ordain but found most temples too corrupt and lazy to be worth his time. He therefore set up a purer school that continues down to this day, made famous by many meditation masters emerging as a result of the back-to-basics approach to the Dharma. Thai Forest Tradition monks left the corrupt cities and temples for the solitude and silence of forests, which are in very short supply due to deforestation, but it resulted in the famous Ajahn Mun and other Isan (northeast Thailand) monks plus the great arhat Ajahn Jumnien and Ajahn Buddhadasa from the south of the country. Ajahn Chah, who was Maha Nikaya along with his famous awakened Western students, tried to erase the distinction between the two schools to be more inclusive, uniting the Sangha.]

Monk DUI, carrying meth (thethaiger.com)

In March, Luang Pu Tuanchai, a monk who rose to fame in 2020 after claiming to have omniscient powers [visions and miraculous powers, a claim which if false would instantly make him not a monk, as it is a defeat-violation of monastic rules to knowingly make false claims of attainments if the rules were enforced as they used to be in times past], was charged with drunk driving and drug possession — and subsequently disrobed (defrocked, thrown out of the monastic Sangha) — after police found him carrying dozens of methamphetamine pills.

Earlier in January, another monk was similarly disrobed after being caught consuming methamphetamine pills and selling them to local youths. Such controversies have eroded public faith in Thailand’s Buddhist monks, with experts telling VICE World News in March that the nation’s Buddhist monastic order was in need of reform to weed out bad actors and restore the religion’s image of purity and righteousness.

World News: Photos show half a billion dollars’ worth of drugs going up in smoke

Trigger warning: crystalline methamphetamine

“The ultimate goal of [Theravada] Buddhism is for the people to get enlightened [awakened],” said Somboon Chungprampree, a social activist and executive secretary of the International Network of Engaged Buddhists.

“[But] most of the society is learning that not all those who are wearing saffron [robes] can be a holy or respectable person.” Buddhism is the official religion of Thailand, followed by about 93 percent of the population. The country is home to more than 300,000 monks [and possibly many more temporarily ordained samaneras or "novices"]. Source (vice.com)

Monday, October 3, 2022

Admiral Byrd found city beneath Antarctica

Ancient alien city discovered under Antarctica is made of crystal

(LAB 360) Sept. 24, 2022. Crystal city of aliens (from space or underground) discovered under Antarctica is home to ancient beings who claim to have been here much longer than earthling-humans on the surface. Operation High Jump succeeded.

Join Lab360 to get access to some amazing perks. Subscribe: bit.ly/1V77IUh. Welcome to Lab 360! It's the ultimate destination for the latest space news and space documentaries from the world of astronomy and astrophysics. Stay updated with all the current discoveries from NASA, the James Webb Space Telescope, along with easily explained videos on black holes, asteroids, galaxies, planets, and more. Also find a collection of easy-to-perform experiments that will feed the science enthusiast in everyone! Ready?

Monday, December 1, 2014

High, High Strangeness (video)

Pat Macpherson, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly; Jeff Rense, Dr. Richard Alan Miller (richardalanmiller.com); Linda Moulton Howe (Earthfiles.com)

(Jeff Rense) "Breakthroughs in Nanotechnology" Clip from Nov. 10, 2014 with guest Dr. Richard Alan Miller on the Jeff Rense Program. Full program available in Archives at renseradio.com

Comet Landing and other EarthFiles

Investigative Reporter Linda Moulton Howe (earthfiles.com)

UPDATE: November 12, 2014 - ESA'S Rosetta Lander, Philae [pronounced FEE-lay], Has Landed on Comet 67P!

The anchors did not shoot out to anchor Philae on the small comet where gravity is weak to hold down the 220-pound lander. But screws on the bottom of the legs were able to drill down into the comet and increase Philae's hold. “Philae has landed -- and this is a big step for human civilization.” - ESA live webcast 11:10 AM EST

Philae was released from its mother craft Rosetta near 3:30 AM EST to fall for 7 hours toward Comet 67P, and landing was confirmed at 11:10 AM EST. Also: ESA Webcast and NASA TV.

UPDATE: Comet 67P is 310 million miles (500 million km) from Earth. The comet's gravity is so weak that 220-pound lander Philae was engineered to fire two harpoons from its landing legs to attach to the comet.

New, Updated 2014 2nd Edition of An Alien Harvest and Brand New 2014 DVD about Gobekli Tepe and Ancient Stone Circles — E.T. Terraforming? —“Scientific journalist Linda Moulton Howe presents her amazing accumulation of evidence for one of the strangest and most mystifying issues of our time.” – Jim Marrs, Author, Crossfire, Alien Agenda and Rule By Secrecy. See Earthfiles Shop

— USAF Tech Sgt. (Ret.) John Burroughs Has Forced U. K. Ministry of Defence to Admit It Withheld At Least 18 Classified UFO Files. Click Updated report with MP3 interview.

“After I saw the Project Condign report that was sort of sneaked out as Unclassified status on May 15, 2006, I was looking at trying to understand why so much is still classified with lots of portions X'ed out — and classified for defense reasons.”- USAF Tech Sgt. (Ret.) John Burroughs

— Part 1: Gigantic, Silent, Black Triangle Above U. S. Army Platoon Near Baghdad — Same Day Pres. George W. Bush Made Surprise Visit. Click for report with MP3 audio interview. “This big triangle was like an aircraft carrier suspended in the sky.” - U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class David Mark Koch, Makasib, Iraq

Eyewitness U. S. Army Sergeant 1st Class David Mark Koch (Ret.) estimated aerial triangle above Makasib, Iraq, was 1200 feet long and remained unmoving in the night sky for at least five minutes. Illustration © 2014 for Earthfiles.com by David Mark Koch.

— Part 2: Why Do World Governments Conspire to Conceal UFOs and E.T.s? Click for report with MP3 audio interview. “Holding secrets is power. Power corrupts. ...If we allow corruption to take hold,...we allow a few to control us and our lives without our consent, and we allow a few to decide how we will interact with extraterrestrial life.” - Robert Salas, USAF Captain (Ret.), author of 2014 Unidentified and 2005 Faded Giants

Highly strange 3-foot-tall creature that U.S. Army Sergeant 1st Class Mark David Koch encountered on a Bavarian hill in Hohenfels, Germany, where he was stationed at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center. Like the Makasib, Iraq, huge triangular craft, Sgt. Koch did not report this alien-looking creature to his military superiors in Germany either, because talking about UFOs and ETs in the military can bring harsh repercussions.

November 22, 2014 - Today Is 51st Anniversary of JFK's Assassination. Author Jim Marrs Says “Oswald Was A CIA Patsy.” Click for report with MP3 audio.

Original 16-foot-diameter stone floor seal in CIA headquarters lobby, Langley, Virginia.

Earth's ocean waters older than Sun

An illustration of how interstellar ice and organic matter before this solar system emerged could interact with the creation of planets, including Earth, through time. Graphic by Bill Saxton, NSF/AUI/NRAO. To read original October 2014 source, see journal Science.

October 14, 2014 — “Our findings show that a significant fraction of our solar system’s water, the most fundamental ingredient to fostering life, is older than the Sun, which indicates that abundant, organic-rich interstellar ices should probably be found in all young planetary systems.”- Conel Alexander, Ph.D., Carnegie Institution, Washington, D.C.

— “It provides the opportunity for organic materials, and the things that are important to the formation of life, to at least be accessible to all planets out there. Whether or not it forms into aliens and little green men and women is a whole other story.”- Fred Ciesla, Ph.D., Univ. of Chicago Planetary Scientist.

A team of scientists led by Ilsedore Cleeves, University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, created models to simulate elimination of space ice deuterium in chemical processing as the sun formed. Could the new solar system produce enough ice with deuterium to reach the ratios of deuterium to hydrogen found in meteorite samples, Earth's ocean water and comets? The answer was no. So at least some of the water on Earth and in our solar system must have an interstellar source that is older than the birth of our sun.

Updated October 13, 2014 - Part 1 “Horrible Secret” At Roswell UFO Crash Site in July 1947? Click for Real X-File and document updates.

Page 5, Majestic Twelve Project 1st Annual Report (1952) under Chairman, Vannevar Bush, Ph.D., and stamped TOP SECRET MAJIC in coordination with Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC) and Intelligence Advisory Committee (IAC). Subject is “retro-virus” that caused Los Alamos lab engineer science team to bleed and die at crash site of non-humans in Roswell, New Mexico, region in July 1947.

October 12, 2014 - More Strange Metallic Sounds, Booms, and Black Pyramid. Click for report. “I heard the weird noise again. It was extremely loud and sounded like trumpets coming from the sky.” - John Paul Bobick, Big Horn Mountains, Wyoming. More

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

The Golden Triangle Buddha (photos)

CC Liu (Berkeley), Wisdom Quarterly; UrsulasWeeklyWanders.com (instagram, facebook)

Small gecko under the Buddha's gorgeous middle finger sits protectively (Ursula/UWW)

There is a golden Buddha in the center of the infamous Golden Triangle, the former crossroads of nefarious activity between mountainous Thailand, Burma, and Laos. Where Theravada Buddhist cultures now meet and mingle, drug lords once ran Chinese money in exchange for opium, heroin, human trafficking, and sundry warlord activity like Southeast Asian and CIA money laundering.

Jogging in Lumpini Park, Bangkok (UWW)

It was a den of iniquity, a big den, the size of a jungle. When Axl Rose first sang "Welcome to the Jungle," he probably had this triangular patch in mind as a counterpart the ruined asphalt grid called Los Angeles and in particular its concrete capital HollywoodLand. But intrepid traveler and photographer Ursula_in_Aus (Ursula_Bkk when in Bangkok) has a backstory to accompany these beautiful pictures.

Golden Triangle

Ursula_in_Aus (edited, abbreviated by Wisdom Quarterly)

...Google “Golden Triangle.” One of the entries that pops up relates to Euclidean geometry and a golden ratio that forms the hypotenuse of the golden or sublime triangle: a magical isosceles with “divine” proportions. It is the basis for perfect pentagrams and logarithmic spirals.

But Asia's Golden Triangle is 950,000 square kms of mountainous jungles that, until the early 21st century, was responsible for most of the world’s heroin production.

Novice at Shwe Yan Pyay, Burma (UWW)

The contradictory “divine” heart of this triangular region is a golden Buddha, joyfully and soberly sitting at the at confluence of the Ruak and Mekong rivers, the intersection of three countries that form the triangle.

The first time I visited this giant marvel, it struck me how imposing the image was, sitting so serenely, facing and overlooking Thailand, apparently oblivious to the gambling casinos across the waters behind it (gambling being the least of the area's vices). More

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Crystal pyramids found in Bermuda Triangle

Wisdom Quarterly; EndAllDisease.com

Two Giant Underwater Crystal Pyramids Discovered in Center of Bermuda Triangle

Pyramid at Cheops (MW)

With the use of sonar, oceanographer Dr. Meyer Verlag discovered giant glass pyramids at a depth of 2,000 meters. The use of other devices has allowed scientists to determine that these glass giants are made of a crystal-like substance and are nearly three times larger than the pyramid of Cheops in Egypt.

He believes that further investigation into the secrets in the center of the pyramids could reveal more information regarding the cases of mysterious disappearances associated with the legendary "Bermuda Triangle." In a press conference held in the Bahamas, Dr. Verlag presented a report with the exact coordinates of the pyramids... More

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Monk seeks nirvana on [drugs and] rooftop

BangkokPost.com; Wisdom Quarterly

SURIN, Thailand - A Buddhist monk, thought to have developed a drug habit as a layman working as a crew member on a fishing boat, sought an unorthodox path to nirvana:

Scaling a building at his temple and spending the night on its roof, he refused attempts to bring him down.

Ven. Kittikhun Thongnam, 34, climbed up to the roof of the monks' living quarters at Wat Prathum Thong in Tambon Tha Tum, Tha Tum district, on Thursday evening. He spent the night on the roof, about 90 feet (30 m) from the ground, and said he wanted to attain nirvana.

Intoxicants and Buddhism: to abstain or not?

America's first family, the Simpsons, as psychonauts hallucinating in cartoon worlds

The monk appeared exhausted as the night wore on, but he refused to be rescued as emergency workers laid out air mattresses and brought in a ladder-equipped rescue vehicle.

Monks at the temple said they noticed the Phra Bhikkhu ["venerable monk"] was missing from the paddy rice blessing ceremony.

They heard tiles falling from the roof of the living quarters nearby and found him sitting on top of the building. He was finally brought down yesterday afternoon.

Roger's psychedelic experience on "American Dad"

The monk's father, Yong Thongnam, said his son was ordained almost a year ago. Before entering the monkhood, he worked on a trawler based in [Southern Thailand's] Samut Sakhon province. But the boat owner terminated his contract after three years when Kittikhun appeared to have developed a mental illness [or a drug abuse problem].

Mr. Yong said his son sometimes lost control of himself and exhibited violent behavior. The son told him that his crew leader gave him "energy booster" pills -- a reference to drugs -- so he could work longer hours. On a busy day, he would work for up for 22 hours.

[Methamphetamine is a terrible problem in Thailand. Abuse often leads men onto roofs, as reported in Thailand's local media (very cheap true crime magazines full of gory pictures), threatening child hostages with knives, usually their own children. This common figure in the news is used to justify draconian police crackdowns such as life sentences for foreign tourists accused of selling drugs and use of the military to quell civilian strife between the Red Shirts and Yellow Shirts. Police corruption ensures drug sales continue.]

Mr. Yong said he thought his son was mentally ill. He gave him traditional [herbal] medicines and took him to hospital for allopathic treatment. After that, his condition improved slightly.

Monk on a hot tiled roof suffering the consequences of earlier drug addiction as a layperson. In Thailand almost all young Buddhist men temporarily ordain as novices.

Ven. Kittikhun later asked his father to be ordained as a monk in the hope the temple could help cure him. Mr. Yong his son had [developed] a split personality. He would either be withdrawn or work non-stop.

Dr. Yutthana Wanpoklang, director of Tha Tum Hospital, said the monk would be given psychological treatment. [The moral to the story is: Drugs will never lead to nirvana.]

Drugged Out [in Thailand]
Andrew Marshall (TIME Magazine)

It is easy to miss the spirit gate that guards the entrance to Phiyer... The villagers believe the gate wards off disease and evil spirits. A modern epidemic now threatens Phiyer and no amount of ancient voodoo will protect it. The village lies in the mountainous Sing district, which shares its northern border -- and the mighty Mekong River -- with Burma. There, in semiautonomous fiefdoms ruled by heavily armed militias, secret factories spew out hundreds of millions of tablets of methamphetamine, a highly addictive drug better known there by its Thai name yaba (crazy medicine). More

Monday, July 25, 2011

In Search Of...Atlantis (video)

Monday, March 28, 2011

Latest on Burma (Myanmar) Earthquake

(NewsyVideos) By Tracy Pfeiffer with anchors Chance Seales. "Asia is on edge after another earthquake hit the southeast Asian country of Myanmar, also known by its former name of Burma. ABC has more." ABC Anchor Juju Chang: "It measured 6.8, shaking across hundreds of miles. So far more than 70 people have died, but the toll is expected to rise. Hundreds of homes, Buddhist monasteries, and government buildings have been damaged." The quake occurred in what's known as the "Golden Triangle," a region where Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand border one another. As a result, shaking and aftershocks were felt in these countries as well as China and Vietnam. An article from the BBC says, even though the Burmese government has released information about the death toll and injuries, it might be some time before the rest of the world gets an accurate picture of the damage. "Burma is ill prepared to deal with natural disasters. ... Communication systems and infrastructure are poor and the military government, still in charge until the handover to a new civilian-led administration, tends to limit the flow of information." And a writer for TIME notes, the current government has a history of questionable crises responses. "During the last natural disaster to hit Burma -- Cyclone Nargis in 2008 -- the government was criticized for placing state security over humanitarian concerns... During the 1980s, a large section of the city of Mandalay was destroyed by fire, but news did not reach the outside world until a Western journalist traveled there nearly five years later." But a writer for Christian Science Monitor focuses on the potential economic impact of the quake and says, financial consequences will be limited. "...[A]side from agriculture and limited tourism, the only other industry of note in the so-called Golden Triangle is opium, and that has been in decline for more than a decade. What remains of the drug industry serves Asia... Illegal though it may be, the industry would feel the same effect as legitimate manufacturers would." A volunteer on the ground tells Sydney Morning Herald, "unhappy information" will likely come out of the rural areas of Myanmar as the recovery progresses.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Earthquake in Burma (Myanmar)

Botswana Gazette (March 27, 2011)
(AlJazeeraEnglish) Many have been killed and injured since an earthquake hit Burma on Thursday, particularly eastern Shan state, where Burma, Thailand, and Laos meet to form the golden triangle, about 50 km from the epicenter of the quake.

An earthquake of about 7.0 magnitude hit Burma. The earthquake struck near the [Golden Triangle] border shared between Burma, Thailand, Laos, and China. The quake reverberated as far as Thailand and Vietnam. Myanmar state radio announced that the latest number they got of people killed was 74 and 111 injured in the quake. But the total will be frequently updated. It is said that some 390 houses, 14 Buddhist monasteries, and 9 government buildings were destroyed. The state-run New Light of Myanmar [propaganda arm] newspaper reported that 15 houses collapsed in the town of Tarlay, where at least 11 people were killed and 29 injured. Another U.N. official said a small hospital there was partially damaged as well as a bridge, making it difficult to access the town. Another two people were killed in the Thai border town of Tachileik, including a 4-year-old boy. Six more people were injured in the town, just across the border from Mae Sai in Thailand's Chiang Rai province. Fears of a tsunami have been allayed as the earthquake was reported to be an inland surface quake.