MANDALAY: The death toll from a huge earthquake that hit Myanmar and Thailand passed 1,600 on Saturday (MAr 29), as rescuers dug through the rubble of collapsed buildings in a desperate search for survivors.
The shallow 7.7-magnitude quake struck northwest of the city of Sagaing in central Myanmar early on Friday afternoon, followed minutes later by a 6.7-magnitude aftershock.
The quake destroyed buildings, downed bridges and buckled roads across swathes of Myanmar, with massive destruction seen in Mandalay, the country’s second-biggest city and home to more than 1.7 million people.
“We need aid,” said Thar Aye, 68, a Mandalay resident. “We don’t have enough of anything.”
At least 1,644 people were killed and nearly 3,400 injured in Myanmar, with at least 139 more missing, the junta said in a statement. Around 10 more deaths have been confirmed in Bangkok.
But with communications badly disrupted, the true scale of the disaster is only starting to emerge from the isolated military-ruled state, and the toll is expected to rise significantly.
In Mandalay, AFP journalists saw rescuers pull a woman alive from the remains of one apartment block where a Red Cross official said more than 90 people could be trapped.
After hours of painstaking work at the Sky Villa Condominium, half of whose 12 storeys were flattened by the quake, Phyu Lay Khaing, 30, was brought out and carried by stretcher to be embraced by her husband and taken to hospital.
Another woman at the apartment block was less fortunate. Her 20-year-old son, an employee at the building, is still missing.
“We cannot find him yet. I only have this child – I feel so heartbroken,” said Min Min Khine, 56, a staff cook at the building.
“He ate at my dining room and said goodbye. Then he left and the earthquake happened. If he was with me, he might have escaped like me,” she told AFP.
Elsewhere in Mandalay, AFP journalists saw dozens of people preparing to bed down in the streets, preferring to sleep in the open rather than take the risk of spending the night in quake-damaged buildings.
“STARTED SHAKING”
This was the biggest quake to hit Myanmar in decades, according to geologists, and the tremors were powerful enough to severely damage buildings across Bangkok, hundreds of kilometres away from the epicentre.
In Mandalay, AFP journalists saw a centuries-old Buddhist pagoda that had been reduced to rubble.
“It started shaking, then it started getting serious,” said a soldier at a checkpoint on the road outside the pagoda.
“The monastery also collapsed. One monk died, some people were injured, we pulled out some people and took them to the hospital.”
Guards at Mandalay Airport, which has reportedly been damaged, turned away journalists.
“It has been closed since yesterday,” said one. “The ceiling collapsed but no one was hurt.”
Damage to the airport would complicate relief efforts in a country whose rescue services and healthcare system have already been ravaged by four years of civil war sparked by a military coup in 2021.
RARE JUNTA PLEA FOR HELP
Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing issued an exceptionally rare appeal for international aid on Friday, indicating the severity of the calamity. Previous military governments have shunned foreign assistance, even after major natural disasters.
The country declared a state of emergency across the six worst-affected regions after the quake, and at one major hospital in the capital, Naypyidaw, medics were forced to treat the wounded in the open air.
Offers of foreign assistance began coming in, with President Donald Trump on Friday pledging US help.
An initial flight from India carrying hygiene kits, blankets, food and other essentials landed in the commercial capital Yangon on Saturday.
China said it sent more than 80 rescuers to Myanmar and pledged US$13.8 million in emergency humanitarian assistance.
Aid agencies have warned that Myanmar is unprepared to deal with a disaster of this magnitude. About 3.5 million people were displaced by the raging civil war, many at risk of hunger, even before the quake struck.
France and the European Union have offered to provide assistance, while the World Health Organization said it was mobilising to prepare trauma injury supplies.
Singapore’s Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said in a Facebook post on Friday that the government “stands ready to extend assistance”.
On Saturday, an 80-member team from the Singapore Civil Defence Force comprising rescuers from the elite Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team, medical doctors, paramedics, search specialists with canines, hazardous materials specialists, and support officers left for Myanmar.
The contingent is carrying with them an array of portable urban search and rescue equipment that includes cutting, breaking and lifting equipment, life detection devices and fibre-optic scopes.
The Singapore Red Cross has also committed an initial S$150,000 (US$111,850) to support relief efforts in both Myanmar and Thailand, and will launch a public fundraising appeal.
BANGKOK BUILDING COLLAPSE
Across the border in Bangkok, rescuers were continuing to work Saturday as a second night drew in, searching for survivors trapped when a 30-storey skyscraper under construction collapsed.
Bangkok governor Chadchart Sittipunt told reporters that eight people had been confirmed dead in the building collapse so far, while at least eight others were rescued.
But he said 79 were still unaccounted for at the building, close to the Chatuchak weekend market that is a magnet for tourists.
“I can’t describe how I feel – it happened in the blink of an eye,” said construction worker Khin Aung, who escaped the collapse.
“All my friends and my brother were in the building when it collapsed. I don’t have any words to say.”
The city’s governor had previously told AFP that around 10 people had been confirmed killed across Bangkok, most in the skyscraper collapse.
Sniffer dogs and thermal imaging drones were deployed to seek signs of life in the rubble, with Chadchart saying that the locations of about 30 people could be ascertained by radar.
Bangkok city authorities said they will deploy more than 100 engineers to inspect buildings for safety after receiving over 2,000 reports of damage.
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