Section:GDN 1N PaGe:24 Edition Date:190807 Edition:01 Zone:S Sent at 6/8/2019 16:26 cYanmaGentaYellowb
- The Guardian Wednesday 7 August 2019
(^24) World
Reuters
Lopburi
Thousands of Thais are fl ocking to
see a Buddhist temple exposed after
drought left water levels at record lows
in a reservoir where it was submerged.
As the reservoir reached less than
3% of capacity, the remains of Wat
Nong Bua Yai, a modern temple
submerged when the dam was built
20 years ago, have became visible in
the middle of dry ground.
Buddhist monks were among the
hundreds of people who walked
through broken temple structures
on cracked earth littered with dead
fi sh last week to pay their respects to
a headless 4-metre (13ft ) statue of Bud-
dha, adorning it with fl owers.
“The temple is normally covered by
water. In the rainy season you don’t see
anything,” said one visitor , Somchai
Ornchawiang, a retired teacher.
He regretted the temple being
Ellie Violet Bramley
Ed Razek , chief marketing offi cer at the
lingerie retailer Victoria’s Secret, who
last year claimed “transsexual” mod-
els should not be hired , has resigned
days after the brand took on its fi rst
openly transgender model.
Valentina Sampaio , 22, from Brazil,
shared a picture of herself on Insta-
gram in a shoot for the fi rm’s Pink line.
But the hiring of the trans model has
been called a cynical move.
In the post #MeToo and Time’s Up
era, the Victoria’s Secret brand has
been labelled regressive, its exclu-
sive use of extremely thin models
lambasted for being dangerous and
out of step with “body positivity”. Its
skimpy lingerie has also failed to chime
with underwear putting comfort fi rst.
Razek, 71, had also claimed that
plus-size models did not fi t the Victo-
ria’s Secret mould and held no interest
for audiences. He later apologised.
Viewing fi gures for the brand’s 2018
fashion show hit an all-time low and
were matched by falling sales. Vict-
oria’s Secret declined to comment.
fl ooded but is now worried about
the damage the drought is causing to
farms , he said.
The dam, with a capacity of 960m
cubic metres, normally irrigates more
than 526,000 hectares (1.3m acres)
of farmland in four provinces, but
drought has cut that to just 1,214 hec-
tares in the single province of Lopburi.
The meteorological department
says Thailand is enduring its worst
drought in a decade.
Yotin Lopnikorn, 38, headman of
the Nong Bua village that used to be
near the temple, recalls visiting it
with friends as a child, before dam
construction forced the villagers out.
“When I was young, I always came
to meet friends at the elephant sculp-
tures in front of the main building to
play there,” Yotin said.
Next to the temple compound are
the remains of the village’s 700 homes.
The ruins have reappeared before,
after a drought in 2015. “ Now I think
we need to save this place,” said Yotin.
Thais fl ock to
temple left
exposed by
dire drought
Lingerie fi rm head
quits after row over
transgender models
▲ Nong Bua village’s temple, as it was
before the dam was built 20 years ago
Buddhists
leave off erings
at Nong Bua Yai
temple, which
has reappeared
for only the
second time since
it was submerged
in a reservoir
PHOTOGRAPH: SOE
ZEYA TUN/REUTERS
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