Myanmar quake toll passes 2,700

Emergency workers in Myanmar rescued a woman on Tuesday who had been trapped for more than 90 hours under the rubble of a building after a devastating earthquake that has killed at least 2,700 people.

The woman, around 63 years old, was found alive and transferred to a hospital, the Myanmar Fire Services Department said, a rare moment of hope as the country held a minute’s silence to honour the dead.

Four days after the shallow 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck, many people in Myanmar are still sleeping outdoors, either unable to return to ruined homes or afraid of further aftershocks.

The head of the ruling junta, Min Aung Hlaing, said 2,719 people were confirmed dead so far, with more than 4,500 injured and 441 still missing.

The toll is expected to rise significantly as rescuers reach towns and villages where communications have been cut off by the quake.

At 12:51:02 (0621 GMT) — the precise time the quake struck on Friday — sirens wailed to bring the country to a standstill to remember those lost.

Mandalay, the country’s second-biggest city with 1.7 million inhabitants, suffered some of the worst destruction.

Outside the Sky Villa apartment complex, one of the city’s worst-hit disaster sites, rescue workers stopped and lined up with hands clasped behind their backs to pay their respects.

Officials and attendants stood behind a cordon, watching relatives further back, as the sirens wailed and a Myanmar flag flew at half-mast from a bamboo pole tied to a rescue tent.

The moment of remembrance is part of a week of national mourning declared by the ruling junta, with flags to fly at half-mast on official buildings until April 6 “in sympathy for the loss of life and damages”.

More than 1,000 foreign rescuers have flown in to help and Myanmar state media reported that nearly 650 people have been pulled alive from ruined buildings around the country.

– Sleeping in the open –

Hundreds of Mandalay residents have been forced to sleep in the open, with their homes destroyed or fearing aftershocks would cause more damage.

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“I don’t feel safe. There are six or seven-floor buildings beside my house leaning, and they can collapse anytime,” Soe Tint, a watchmaker, told AFP after sleeping outside.

Some have tents but many — including babies and children — have been bedding down on blankets in the middle of roads, staying as far away as possible from damaged buildings.

At an examination hall, where part of the building collapsed on hundreds of monks taking an exam, book bags were piled on a table outside, the uncollected belongings of the victims.

The smell was “very high”, one Indian rescue worker said. The stench of bodies rotting in the heat was unmistakable at several disaster sites around the city.

On the outskirts of Mandalay, a crematorium has received hundreds of bodies for disposal, with many more to come as victims are dug out of the rubble.

– International aid effort –

Even before Friday’s quake, Myanmar’s 50 million people were suffering, the country ravaged by four years of civil war sparked when the army ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government in 2021.

At least 3.5 million people were displaced by the conflict before the quake, many of them at risk of hunger, according to the United Nations.

The junta says it is doing its best to respond to the disaster but there have been multiple reports in recent days of the military carrying out air strikes on armed groups opposed to its rule, even as the country reels from the quake’s devastation.

UN special envoy to Myanmar Julie Bishop called Monday for all parties to cease hostilities and focus on protecting civilians and delivering aid.

An alliance of three ethnic minority armed groups that have been fighting against the junta announced a one-month pause in hostilities to support humanitarian efforts in response to the quake.

Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing issued an exceptionally rare appeal for foreign assistance, breaking with the isolated ruling generals’ customary practice of shunning help from abroad in the wake of major disasters.

Hundreds of kilometres away, Bangkok authorities said the death toll there had risen to 20, the vast majority killed when a 30-storey skyscraper under construction collapsed.

AFP