| Tenasserim Hills | |
| တနင်္သာရီ တောင်တန်း / ทิวเขาตะนาวศรี | |
| Range | |
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Extent of the Tenasserim Hills and their subranges
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| Countries | Burma, Thailand, Malaysia |
|---|---|
| Region | Southeast Asia |
| Part of | Indo-Malayan System |
| Highest point | Mount Tahan (Malaysia) |
| - elevation | 2,187 m (7,175 ft) |
| - coordinates | |
| Length | 1,670 km (1,038 mi), N/S |
| Width | 130 km (81 mi), E/W |
| Geology | Granite and Limestone |
Tenasserim Hills or Tenasserim Range (Burmese: တနင်္သာရီ တောင်တန်း, IPA: [tənɪ̀ɴθàjì tàuɴdáɴ]; Thai: ทิวเขาตะนาวศรี, IPA: [tʰiw kʰǎw ta.naːw sǐː], Thiokhao Tanaosi) is the geographical name of a roughly 1,700 km long mountain chain, part of the Indo-Malayan mountain system[1] in Southeast Asia. Despite their relatively scant altitude these mountains form an effective barrier between Thailand and Burma in their northern and central region.[2] There are only two transnational roads and cross-border points between Chumphon and Tak, at the Three Pagodas Pass and at Mae Sot. The latter is located beyond the northern end of the range, where the Tenasserim Hills meet the Dawna Range.
The southern section of this extensive chain of mountains runs along the Kra Isthmus into the Malay peninsula almost reaching Singapore. Many rivers have their source in these mountains, but none of them are very long.
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This mountain chain is named after the Tenasserim Region (Tanintharyi) in Burma and its name in Thai is Thio Khao Tanaosi, also spelt as Tanawsri, Tanao Sri or Tanaw Sri. According to Malaysian sources, the name may also be derived from the Kedah Malay name Tanah Sari or Tanah Seri which can be translated as "The essence land" or "The glowing land".
The Tenasserim Hills are part of a long granite mountain ridge that is older than the Himalayas.[3] Further south from the 16th parallel, the Shan Hills break up into narrow steep-sided ranges, the Dawna Range in the west and, parallel to it at the southeastern end, the peninsular Tenasserim Mountains that extend southwards along the Kra Isthmus.[4]
Eastwards, in Kanchanaburi Province on the Thai side, the mountain range is crossed by the Khwae Yai River and the Khwae Noi River. In this area small hill ridges alternate with narrow valleys that are often only about 2 km wide and further east there are only isolated hills, where the range ends in the Central Plain of Thailand. Further south the Phachi, the Pranburi and the Phetchaburi River flow eastwards from the range towards the Gulf of Siam.
The westernmost range is separated from the Tenasserim coast by the Three Pagodas Fault.[5] West of it lie the Dawna Range, the Karen Hills and the valleys of the Salween and the Gyaing. Southwards on the western side, the Ye, Heinze, Dawei (Tavoy), Great Tenasserim (Tanintharyi) and the Lenya rivers are relatively short and flow into the Andaman Sea. Further south the Kraburi River forms the southern border between Thailand and Burma.
Great extensions of these hills are covered with dense tropical evergreen forest. Usually the western slopes are more densely forested than the eastern for they receive more abundant monsoon rains.[9] These forests form the Tenasserim-South Thailand semi-evergreen rain forests, which together with the Kayah-Karen montane rain forests are part of the Kayah-Karen/Tenasserim moist forests ecoregion[10] which is included in the Global 200 list of ecoregions identified by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) as priorities for conservation.[11] The western slopes reach down to sea level, where there are wide areas covered with mangroves.
The Tenasserim Hills form the habitat for a number of endangered species, including the Gurney's Pitta, endemic to Thailand and Burma, as well as the Asian Elephant and the Tiger. The Sumatran Rhinoceros has been also reported in the Tenasserim Range; there are records from the north of Tenasserim proper, where there were numerous reports in 1962[12], to Kota Tinggi in the south where a rhino was captured in 1994[13]
Other species include the Sambar Deer, Barking Deer, Serow, Red Goral, Leopard, Kitti's Hog-nosed Bat, the Tenasserim White-bellied Rat and the Tenasserim lutung, as well as and a number of bird species. Among the fishes in the streams and rivulets of the range the Emperor loach[14] and the Tenasserim Garra deserve mention.
The Tanintharyi National Park and the Tanintharyi Nature Reserve were established in 2005, and the Lenya National Park was proposed in 2002 and 2004, on the Burmese side in order to implement habitat conservation, but illegal logging driven by greed and corruption is an ongoing problem on both sides of the border.[15] On the Thai side the Kaeng Krachan National Park was demarcated already in 1981, covering parts of the districts of Nong Ya Plong, Kaeng Krachan and Tha Yang of Phetchaburi Province, and of Hua Hin of Prachuap Khiri Khan Province.[16] The Nam Tok Huay Yang National Park is another park located on the Thai side by the border area between 100 and 1200 metres above sea level in Prachuap Khiri Khan Province.[17]
This range forms a natural border between Burma and Thailand, but it was crossed in 1759 by Burmese troops led by Alaungpaya and his son Hsinbyushin during the Burmese–Siamese War (1759–1760). The Burmese battle plan was to go around the heavily defended Siamese positions along shorter, more direct invasion routes. The invasion force overran relatively thin Siamese defenses in the coast, crossed the Tenasserim Hills to the shore of the Gulf of Siam, and turned north towards Ayutthaya.[18]
In January 1942, at the beginning of the Japanese conquest of Burma, the main body of the Japanese 33d Division began the main attack towards Rangoon westward from Thailand across the Kawkareik Pass in the Tenasserim Range. A road was cut across the mountains by Japanese military engineers, but many infantry units crossed the range on foot in an arduous march through the forests and cliffs. This road was impracticable during the rainy season, when mud and rivulets made advance difficult for the Japanese and leeches abounded.[19]
Between 1942 and 1943, during the construction of the Burma Railway between Bangkok and Yangon, Hellfire Pass in the Tenasserim Range was a particularly difficult section of the line to build. It was the largest rock cutting on the railway, also known as the "Death Railway", coupled with its general remoteness and the lack of proper construction tools during building.[20] The Australian, British, Dutch, other allied prisoners of war, along with Chinese, Malay and Tamil labourers, were required by the Japanese to complete the cutting of the stretch. 69 men were beaten to death by Japanese and Korean guards in the six weeks it took to build the railway pass, and many more died from cholera, dysentery, starvation, and exhaustion (Wigmore 568).[20]
On the 19th July 2011 a Royal Thai Air Force Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter crashed in these mountains killing 9. The chopper had been sent out to recover five bodies of victims of another helicopter, a Bell UH-1 Iroquois, that had crashed two days before while looking for illegal loggers in Kaeng Krachan National Park near the Burmese border west of Phetchaburi.[21] The Black Hawk helicopter crashed near 995 m high Yage Taung mountain in the Tanintharyi National Park zone in Burma, close to the border with Thailand.[22] A third helicopter, a Bell 212, also crashed in the same area on Sunday 25th July a few miles further east close to the Kaeng Krachan reservoir.[23] Superstitious people blamed the three consecutive crashes on the fact that the densely forested mountains of the Tenasserim Range have strong guardian spirits.[24]