TABAYIN: Eighteen people were killed in an airstrike on a town in central Myanmar, a local official, a rescue worker and two residents said on Saturday.

Myanmar has been rocked by civil war since the military snatched power in a 2021 coup, and its battles with numerous anti-coup fighters have brought frequent airstrikes that often kill civilians.

Two bombs were dropped on Tabayin township in Sagaing region on Friday evening, with one hitting a busy teashop, according to a local administration official. He said that 18 people were killed and 20 were wounded in the attacks.

“Deaths were high at the teashop as it was crowded time,” he said.

A rescue worker who arrived on the scene 15 minutes after the strike said seven people were killed on the spot and 11 others died later at hospital.

The teashop — a traditional social hub in Myanmar — and around a dozen houses nearby were “totally destroyed”, he said.

A survivor said he was watching a televised boxing match in the teashop when the bomb hit.

“As soon as I heard aircraft fly over, I got my body to the ground,” he said, adding that the sound from the blast was deafening. “I saw a big fire over my head… I was lucky, I returned home after that.” A junta spokesman did not answer a call from a reporter.

Funerals for those killed were held on Saturday, with some victims’ faces covered by towels as they had been rendered unrecognisable, a local resident said.

“I feel very sad because I knew some of them very well,” she said. A junta airstrike in Sagaing in May killed 22 people, including 20 children, despite a purported ceasefire cal­led after a devastating earthquake hit Myanmar.

Published in Dawn, December 7th, 2025