UN officials who surveyed earthquake damage in Myanmar urged the global community on Tuesday to ramp up aid before the looming monsoon season worsens catastrophic conditions, with the death toll at 2,719 and expected to surpass 3,000.
Drinking water, hygiene, food, shelter, and medicine are the most critical needs after extensive damage to buildings, roads, and bridges, said Marcoluigi Corsi, acting humanitarian and resident coordinator, after a two-day visit.
“We remain, of course, deeply committed to reaching people in Myanmar who need aid,” said UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.
“We must act swiftly to provide relief before the upcoming monsoon season, which will worsen the horrendous crisis.”
A civil war in Myanmar had displaced more than 3 million people long before the quake struck. UN special envoy for Myanmar Julie Bishop urged all sides to immediately cease fire, permit humanitarian access, and ensure aid workers are safe.
“Continuing military operations in disaster-affected areas risks further loss of life,” she said.
Aid groups in Myanmar warned that the window to find survivors was closing fast.
Myanmar quake survivors left without food, water, and shelter, aid groups say
Aid groups arriving in the worst-hit areas of Myanmar said there was an urgent need for shelter, food, and water after last week’s devastating quake.
Myanmar’s military ruler Min Aung Hlaing said the death toll from Friday’s 7.7 magnitude quake reached 2,719 as of Tuesday morning and was expected to surpass 3,000. About 4,521 people were injured, and 441 were missing.
“Among the missing, most are assumed to be dead. There is a narrow chance for them to remain alive,” he said.
The quake, which struck at lunchtime on Friday, was the strongest to hit the Southeast Asian country in more than a century. It toppled ancient pagodas and modern buildings and inflicted significant damage on Myanmar’s second city Mandalay and Naypyitaw, the capital the previous junta purpose-built to be an impregnable fortress.
UN agencies said hospitals were overwhelmed and rescue efforts hindered by infrastructure damage and the civil war. Rebels have accused the military of conducting airstrikes even after the quake, and on Tuesday, a major rebel alliance declared a unilateral ceasefire to help relief efforts.
The earthquake was the latest in a succession of blows for the impoverished country of 53 million people after a 2021 coup that returned the military to power and devastated the economy after a decade of development and tentative democracy.
Myanmar’s military has been accused of widespread atrocities against civilians as it fought to quell a multi-pronged rebellion after the coup. It has dismissed the accusations as misinformation and said it is protecting the country from terrorists.
In neighbouring Thailand, the death toll from the quake rose to 21 on Tuesday, with hundreds of buildings damaged. Rescuers kept searching for life in the rubble of a collapsed skyscraper under construction in the capital, Bangkok, but acknowledged time was against them.
The region has been hit by five more aftershocks.
Julia Rees of the UN children’s agency UNICEF said she witnessed entire communities in Myanmar that had been flattened, with immense destruction and psychological trauma.
“This crisis is still unfolding. The tremors are continuing. Search and rescue operations are ongoing. Bodies are being pulled from the rubble,” she said.
Thai woman gives birth to baby girl amid chaos of earthquake
In the chaos of Friday’s earthquake, a Thai woman gave birth to a baby girl on a rolling bed in a hospital as it was being evacuated.
“The needs are massive, and they are rising by the hour. The window for life-saving response is closing.”
In the Mandalay area, 50 children and two teachers were killed when their preschool collapsed, the UN humanitarian agency said.
In a rare survival story, a 63-year-old woman who was trapped for 91 hours was pulled from the rubble of a building in Naypyitaw on Tuesday in a joint rescue effort by the Myanmar fire department and teams from India, China, and Russia.
Myanmar’s civil war has complicated efforts to reach those injured and made homeless, including tight controls over the internet and communication networks.
The Three Brotherhood Alliance of three major rebel groups at war with the junta on Tuesday declared a unilateral one-month ceasefire to allow urgent humanitarian efforts to “be carried out as swiftly and effectively as possible”.
In its nightly news bulletin on Tuesday, state-controlled MRTV quoted Min Aung Hlaing as saying the military had halted its offensives, but unspecified ethnic minority armies were planning to exploit the disaster.
“The military is aware they are gathering, training and preparing to attack,” it said, quoting the general as saying at an event to raise funds for quake victims.
“We consider it as attacking us and will respond accordingly.”
One rebel group, the Karen National Union, on Sunday said the junta had conducted airstrikes in the east of the country at a time when it should be prioritising quake relief efforts.
Amnesty International said it had received testimony corroborating reports of air strikes near areas where quake recovery efforts were focused.
“You cannot ask for aid with one hand and bomb with the other,” said Amnesty’s Myanmar researcher Joe Freeman.
It was unclear if Min Aung Hlaing would make a rare foreign trip this week to attend a regional summit in Bangkok as planned. Thailand on Tuesday said the general may attend by teleconference.
In Bangkok, rescuers were seeking signs of life in the ruins of an unfinished skyscraper that collapsed, aware that four days after the quake, chances had dimmed of finding survivors.
At least 14 deaths have been confirmed at the site and seven elsewhere in the city. The government is investigating the collapse and initial tests showed some steel samples from the site were substandard.
There were an estimated 70 bodies under the rubble and experts said 12 had been located using scanners, but access was blocked by large debris.
“Maybe they can survive one week or two weeks, so we have to go on,” Bangkok governor Chadchart Sittipunt said.
“The experts have hope.”
(TIMES Live)
