Yangon, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar is planning to turn stem roots and branches of cyclone-downed trees in Yangon municipal area into sculpture products for auction, the local weekly 7-Day News reported Thursday.

    A total of 45 professional sculptors from two areas of the country are being selected and invited for the move, the report said, adding that they are from Dapain and Bago.

    A cyclone storm, that swept Myanmar in early May, blew down over 13,000 old-aged trees and shade-providing ones. Some of these downed trees and debris pressed and rested on houses, while some dragged down lamp-posts and blocked roads in the city.

    So far after the disaster, almost all of the downed trees and debris on the roads had been cleared and accumulated on vacant plots in the city from where stem roots and branches are being sorted out for making sculpture products to be auctioned to domestic and foreign business entrepreneurs.

    These stem roots and branches of downed trees are of 30 to 100 years of age.

    Meanwhile, the Myanmar authorities have been planting 30,000 shade-providing trees to replace collapsed ones and so far 6,000 downed trees have been put upright in the Yangon municipal areas.