- Photo: U Aung Kyaw Myint/Facebook
YANGON: The Zeya Thiri Cinema in Sagaing, which took over 50 years to build and survived a powerful earthquake recently, is being praised on social media.
The cinema was built in 1973-74 and is located in the centre of Sagaing.
U Aung Kyaw Myint, an engineer supervising the construction of the Zeya Thiri Cinema, said that there used to be a cinema in Sagaing City called the Gaddam Cinema and the Myoma (Aung Ngwe Thar) Cinema, but the fire destroyed those cinemas.
"We knew from reading that we were building on an earthquake fault because we were building it at that time.
"Not all of us were geologists. We were engineers, so we didn't know much about earthquakes, but we did read about the movement of this fault. So we built it based on the worst-case scenario," U Aung Kyaw Myint told The Daily Eleven newspaper about the conditions during construction at that time.
Retired assistant engineer U Aung Kyaw Myint, who currently lives in Mandalay, said he wrote on social media to raise awareness about the current state of construction of the Zeya Thiri Cinema.
"The main reason I wrote this was because I didn't want people to misunderstand me and to avoid misconceptions.
"When I was going to write, I was also afraid that if I wrote this at this time, I would be compromising my own reputation.
"After all, I wrote it because everyone encouraged me. The main thing is to do it with dedication," U Aung Kyaw Myint continued.
When the cinema was first built, a site visit and soil testing were conducted, and based on the knowledge that it was close to an earthquake zone, an earthquake-resistant design was developed.
"In 1968, a major fire broke out in the center of Sagaing. The fire destroyed the Ghum Movie Theater and the Myoma (Aung Ngwe Thar) Movie Theater.
"There were no more movie theaters in Sagaing. At that time, the Minister of Public Works, General Thaung Dan (Sagaing) entrusted the Ministry of Construction with the construction of a new modern movie theater in Sagaing.
"Senior engineers from the Department of Estimation and Surveying of the Ministry of Construction conducted field inspections of the former (city movie theater) and the current movie theater site.
"Based on the investigation, it was found that it was close to the earthquake zone, and a seismic design drawing was prepared."
The movie theater faces the south-north and faces the southern main road. The six (RC.) pillars on the south side of the movie theater are tilted (65*) degrees to the north.
The opening area is (70) feet wide and (94) feet long. There is a movie theater and a special stage called (DC) on the south. The crescent movie theater is on the north.
"There are canvas and canvas boxes. The roof is made of wooden panels and corrugated iron, and the roof is lowered to the north in three steps like a ladder.
"The ceiling is made of plywood with holes drilled and glued to the wooden steps," U Aung Kyaw Myint wrote on social media.
The cinema was initially halted due to lack of funding and was only rebuilt in 1975, with construction reportedly completed in 1976-77.
"The Zeya Thiri Cinema will be 50 years old in 2025. To make this cinema strong, the senior engineers from the Ministry of Construction's Estimate and Design Department drew up a (Scissic Structure Design) design.
"The senior engineers of the Sagaing Region Construction Department supervised it at various levels, and the junior engineers and skilled workers led by me built it systematically according to the design, resulting in strong results," U Aung Kyaw Myint continued. - Eleven Media/ANN
