The number of deaths for a great earthquake that hit Burma’s Friday has exceeded 1,600according to numbers of the military government, while rescue teams, to which have joined countries such as China, Russia or Malaysia, continue, They are a desperate search for survivors.
The 7.7 magnitude earthquake shook the center of Burma, followed minutes later by a magnitude replica 6.7. The testimonies that come from within the country and social networks images show the devastation in Mandalay, the second largest city, where roads, buildings and several temples have been destroyed.
Many Mandalay neighbors talk about hundreds of people buried under the rubble. In addition, thousands of residents have spent the last two nights outdoors for fear of new replicas. The airport of this city, which suffered serious damage, has suspended its operations and the main access roads were damaged by detachments and cracks, which is difficult to entry convoys with humanitarian aid.
Several witnesses point out many people trapped under the remains of a mandalay mosque that collapsed just Friday, when there were more people inside. On the outskirts of the city, in the village of Sule Kone, another mosque fell apart after the earthquake. “I recovered four people with my own hands. But, unfortunately, three were already dead and One died in my arms“, says a witness.
Red Cross workers said on Saturday that more than a hundred people were also among the remains of a 12 -story apartments block that collapsed through the earthquake. In Kyaukse, another neighboring town to Mandalay, the bodies of 12 children and a teacher. Some reports pointed out that there are about 50 minors and six teachers who are still missing.
A rescue operator explained to Reuters On Saturday afternoon that his team was trying to free 140 monks from the ruins of a collapsed building in a Mandalay neighborhood. “We cannot help because we don’t have enough labor or machines to remove debris,” he said. The tragedy spread throughout the city and its surroundings while The Army continues to launch air attacks in areas declared in a state of emergency against prodemocracy resistance groups.
First, a coup d’etat started the failed democratic experiment in Burma, home of 57 million people, returning to the country of Pagodas and Jade to a recent past of military repression. Afterwards, a bloody civil war arrived that, for four years, has left three and a half million displaced people from their homes and more than a third of the population on the edge of the famine. The last stake to the Burmese people has been the strong earthquake. But we cannot even know the dimension of his devastation because his epicenter has been in one of the most isolated places in the outside world.
“The tremor lasted about two minutes and then we spent several hours without light,” says a resident of Yangon, the largest city in Burma, which responded to a message for the signal application after recovering the connection after the shaking on Friday at noon a powerful earthquake that also caused damage in neighboring countries such as Thailand, China and Vietnam.
The last report of the military authorities indicates that at least 1,644 people have died, 3,408 have been injured and another 139 are missing. International organizations say that the real magnitude of deaths and destruction is much greater. The United States Geological Service (USGS), an American government agency, estimated that the death toll could exceed 10,000.
“Here we are fine, but I can’t imagine the catastrophe that has had to happen in other cities in the country closer to the epicenter,”Explains Yangon’s wife, who prefers not to be published her data because she is using an illegal VPN server to chat. She, like many Burmes, have seen the videos that circulate in Western social networks of collapsed buildings in Mandalay.
There are images of the outer walls of the Royal Palace, built in the 1850s, collapsing towards the pit that surrounds the complex. A famous 1,000 -year -old pagoda has also fallen. A great fire has consumed the university and the largest hospital in the city, which has 1,000 beds, is overwhelmed. Many testimonies indicate that emergency tents were installed in the streets that are around the medical center to serve the injured.
Some humanitarian workers who are collaborating with rescue teams insist to international media that in small towns near Mandalay, the earthquake has left hundreds of dead who do not appear yet in the official figures.
After declaring the emergency situation in six major stripes in the center of the country, the isolated military board that governs Burma from the February 2021 coup, launched a request for international aid. “Public infrastructure has suffered important damage, especially roads and collapsed bridges. We are concerned about the state of large dams,” says Yangon Marie ManriqueCoordinator of the Red Cross.
“The earthquake could not have come at the worse time for Burma, where the civilian population is constantly suffering military air attacks and clashes between rebel groups and the army. All this will hinder humanitarian assistance “says Joe Freeman, researcher at Amnesty International in this Southeast Asian nation.
At the moment, there are several states of the east of the country that are in the hands of the ethnic groups that fight against the army, known as Tatmadaw. In other regions, controlled by the military, Internet access is restricted and the media operate a strict censorship, so it is very difficult to know the real scope of the tragedy.
The center of Burma, which has been the epicenter of the earthquake, has been beaten by the conflict all these years. Sagaing, southwest of Mandalay, is one of the battlefields because it became a bastion of prodemocracy resistance groups that fight to overthrow the military government. The earthquake occurred in the one known as Sagaing Fallawhere Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates collide.
From the people’s defense forces, as the militias fighting in this area against the coup military, they have assured that they will do everything possible for humanitarian assistance I reached every corner where it is needed. “The problem is communications because many areas are isolated because of Internet restrictions”points out Zin Mar,, head of the diplomacy of the National Unity Government (NUG), formed in exile by the legislators who won the elections trampled by the military.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that it was mobilizing its logistics center in Dubai to quickly send to Burma Medical supplies. As reported Reutersthe American program for International Disaster Assistance, which for many years has operated in this country, cannot be deployed in this emergency due to the dismantling of the US foreign aid agency, the USAID, by the Trump administration.
China sent a team of 37 people, who arrived in Yangon in the early hours of Saturday. Russia also sent two aircraft with 120 rescuers and supplies. The UN reported that it had assigned five million dollars for rescue work. From Washington, President Donald Trump also announced that his country would contribute to the emergency of Burma.
“This powerful earthquake hit a country ravaged by a deep crisis, with 19.9 million people in need of humanitarian assistance,” he says Arif NoorDirector in Burma of the Care International Aid Organization. Four years after the military coup overthrow the democratically elected government at the polls, the brutal civil war is razing a country that, as the UN pointed out in a report, is a humanitarian crisis on the edge.
Burma has gone from being one of the most promising emerging markets in Asia (after decades under the yoke of military regimes, began to open in 2011 to foreign investment, becoming in 2016, according to the IMF, the fastest growing economy in the world) to be on the verge of a large famine. The United Nations researchers say that almost half of the population lives below the national poverty threshold.
In addition, UNICEF has also disseminated reports on how the Burmese army is flooding from land mines “almost all states and regions” of the country, with the exception of the capital, Naypyidaw, where the high military commanders that govern. “The number of dead people as a result of land mines and explosive artifacts tripled last year, and children represent 20% of the victims,” they say. “Burma is already among the most contaminated countries in the world with land mines and explosive artifacts despite being one of the Signatories of the UN Convention that prohibits antipersone mines.”