Yage Taung

Yage Taung
ရိဒ်တောင်
Yage Taung Location in Burma
Highest point
Elevation	978 m (3,209 ft)[1]
Coordinates	12°46′29″N 99°13′17″E / 12.77472°N 99.22139°E / 12.77472; 99.22139[2]
Geography
Location	Tanintharyi Region, Myanmar
Parent range	Tenasserim Hills
Climbing
First ascent	unknown
Easiest route	climb

Yage Taung (Burmese: ရိဒ်တောင်) is a peak of the Tenasserim Hills, Burma.^[3] This mountain rises within the Tanintharyi National Park which is coterminous with the Kaeng Krachan National Park zone over the border with Thailand.^[4]

Geography[edit]

Yage Taung is located in a wooded and largely uninhabited area of the Tanintharyi Region, 1.4 km to the west of the border with Thailand. The closest conspicuous peaks are 1,431 m high Palan Taung rising less than 6 km to the NNW and 1,315 m high Yekye Tong to the SSE, also by the Thai border.^[2]

The nearest inhabited place on the Burmese side is Natthi, a riverside village located 26 km to the WSW.^[3]

History[edit]

On 19 July 2011, a Royal Thai Army Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter crashed in the Yage Taung mountainside, killing 9. The chopper had been sent out to recover five bodies of victims of another helicopter crash involving a Bell UH-1 Iroquois that had occurred two days earlier while looking for illegal loggers in Kaeng Krachan National Park near the Burmese border west of Phetchaburi.^[5]

A third helicopter, a Bell 212, also crashed in the same area on Sunday, 25 July a few miles further east close to the Kaeng Krachan Reservoir.^[6] Superstitious people blamed the three consecutive helicopter crashes on the belief that the densely forested mountains of the Tenasserim Range have strong guardian spirits according to Thai folklore.^[7]

See also[edit]

• List of mountains in Burma

References[edit]