BANGKOK: Foreign rescue teams and supplies arrived in Myanmar on Sunday to help the impoverished country cope with an earthquake that killed over 1,600 and left many near the epicentre scrambling for help without proper equipment.
The 7.7-magnitude quake, one of Myanmar’s strongest in a century, jolted the Southeast Asian nation on Friday, leaving at least 1,700 people dead and 3,408 injured besides 139 missing in Myanmar and at least 18 in neighbouring Thailand.
Along with aid and personnel from Malaysia, Singapore and Russia, India, China and Thailand among Myanmar’s neighbours sent relief materials and teams.
Critical infrastructure, including bridges, highways, airports and railways, across the country of 55 million lay damaged, slowing humanitarian efforts while a civil war that has battered the economy, displaced over 3.5 million people and debilitated the health system rages on.
Authorities rush to fix transportation routes amid efforts to save those still trapped under debris
In some of the hardest-hit areas, residents said government assistance was scarce.
“It is necessary to restore the transportation routes as soon as possible. It’s also necessary to fix the railways and reopen the airports so that rescue operations would be more effective,” the junta chief, senior general Min Aung Hlaing said.
The US Geological Service’s predictive modelling earlier estimated Myanmar’s death toll could top 10,000 and losses could exceed the country’s annual economic output.
Hospitals in parts of central and northwestern Myanmar, including the second-biggest city, Mandalay, and the capital Naypyitaw, were struggling to cope with an influx of injured people, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
“With bridges destroyed, even aid from Mandalay is struggling to get through,” Sagaing Federal Unit Hluttaw, a political association linked to the NUG, said.
Countless trapped
In Mandalay, scores of people were feared trapped under collapsed buildings and most could not be reached or pulled out without heavy machinery, rescuers said.
“My teams in Mandalay are using work gloves, ropes and basic kits to dig and retrieve people,” said one of the humanitarian workers. Reuters is not naming them because of security concerns. “There are countless trapped and still missing. The death toll is impossible to count at the moment due to the number trapped and unidentified, if alive.”
Russian and Indian rescue workers were heading to Mandalay, and multiple teams of Chinese, Thai and Singapore rescue personnel have also arrived.
In Bangkok, at the site of the collapsed 33-storey building, rescuers surrounded by shattered concrete piles and twisted metal continued their efforts to rescue dozens of workers trapped under the rubble.
72 hours are critical
Teerasak Thongmo, a Thai police commander, said his team of policemen and rescue dogs were racing against time to locate survivors, struggling to move around metal debris and sharp edges on an unstable structure.
“Right now, our team is trying to find anyone that might still be alive. Within the first 72 hours, we have to try and save those still alive,” he said.
Near the rescue operations, relatives and friends of the missing and trapped construction workers waited for news. Some broke down.
“Ploy, Ploy, Ploy, my daughter, I’m here for you now!” one woman wailed, as she was hugged by two others. “Ploy, can you hear me calling out for you?”
Published in Dawn, March 31st, 2025