BANGKOK — Rescue workers saved a 63-year-old woman from a tiled blew on a building in Burma (also known as Myanmar) capital on Tuesday, but hopes to find more survivors of the violent earthquake that killed more than 2,700 people, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis caused by the Civil War.
The Naypyitaw fire department said the woman was pulled out of the tile rub 91 hours after being buried when the building collapsed in the 7.7 magnitude earthquake that reached noon on Friday. Experts say the likelihood of finding a survivor will drop dramatically in 72 hours.
We expect the number of deaths to rise
General Min Aung Fuhring, head of Burmese military government, reported on a relief donation forum in Nepaitau that 2,719 people have been killed, 4,521 people have been injured and 441 have been lost, Burma’s MRTV TV reported.
He said Friday’s earthquake was the second most powerful in the country’s recorded history after a magnitude 8 tremor east of Mandalay in May 1912.
The number of casualties is expected to rise widely. The earthquake hit a wide area of the country, making it difficult to assess the maximum devastation, with no power, telephone or cell connections to many areas, without damage to roads and bridges.
Most of the reports so far come from Mandalay, Burma’s second largest city, near the earthquake’s epicenter, and the capital Nepaitau.
“The need is huge and rises every hour,” said Juliar Leise, UNICEF’s vice president of Burma.
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The Burma fire station said 403 people were rescued in Mandalay and 259 bodies had been found so far. In one incident, 50 Buddhist monks who were taking religious examinations at the monastery when the building collapsed, and another 150 are believed to be buried in the tile rub.
Structural damage is extensive
The World Health Organization said that over 10,000 buildings in total have been known to have collapsed or have been severely damaged by the earthquake.
The earthquake also shook neighboring Thailand, causing the collapse of high-rise buildings under construction, and many workers buried there.
Two bodies were pulled from the warerub on Monday and another body was recovered on Tuesday, but dozens were still missing. Overall, 21 people were killed and 34 injured in Bangkok, mainly at construction sites.
In Burma, search and rescue efforts across the affected areas temporarily suspended at noon on Tuesday.
Relief activities moving at a slow pace
Foreign aid workers are arriving slowly to help with rescue operations, but progress is slow due to a lack of heavy machinery in many places.
On one site on Naypyitaw on Tuesday, workers formed human chains and held hands to hand over a chunk of bricks and concrete from the ruins of the collapsed building.
The Myanmar Newspaper’s Newspaper’s Newspaper reported on Tuesday that a team of rescuers had saved four people from the ruins of the apartment the day before. They included a 5-year-old pregnant woman who had been locked up for more than 60 hours.
They also reported that two teenagers tried to craze from the tile ble of the same building, which helps them lead them using their cell phone flashlights. Rescue workers were able to use the details from what they told them to find their grandmother and siblings.
International rescue teams from several countries are on the scene, including Russia, China, India, the United Arab Emirates and several Southeast Asian countries.
A small agency of the US International Development Disaster Assessment Team arrived Tuesday to determine the best way to respond, taking into account limited US resources, with reduced foreign aid budgets and demolishing the agency as an independent venture.
Supplementary pledges are poured in as officials warn of the risk of illness
Meanwhile, countries have pledged to support millions of people to help Burma and humanitarian organizations do monumental work in the future.
Even before the earthquake, Burma’s brutal civil war evacuated more than 3 million people from their homes and nearly 20 million people were in trouble, according to the United Nations.
Many already lack basic healthcare and standard vaccinations, and earthquake-related destruction of water and sanitation infrastructure and the movement of people to overcrowded shelters increased the risk of disease outbreaks and warned of coordinating the UN’s humanitarian issues.
“The vulnerability to respiratory infections, skin diseases, vector-borne diseases such as dengue fever and vaccine-preventable diseases such as vaccines such as measles is escalating,” OCHA said in its latest report.
I’m worried about the start of the monsoon season
Shelters are also a big problem. The monsoon season is especially approaching.
Since the earthquake, many people have slept outside because their homes had been destroyed or feared aftershocks.
Civil Wars complicate disaster relief
Burmese military seized power from Aung San Suu Kyi’s democratically elected government in 2021, causing what turned into serious armed resistance and a brutal civil war.
Government forces lost many control in Burma, and many locations were dangerous or impossible for aid groups to reach even before the earthquake.
The Shadow Rictition National Unity government has called a one-sided ceasefire for its troops, a military attack that has not stopped in the aftermath of the earthquake, which has been called a one-sided ceasefire for its troops.
Founded by elected lawmakers who were expelled in 2021, NUG called on the international community to ensure humanitarian aid was directly communicated to earthquake victims, urging “vigilance against attempts by the junta to bypass or block humanitarian aid,” which “may have destructive consequences.”
The ceasefire plan for the Ngu armed wings, known as the Republican Defense Force, has little impact on the battlefield, but can elicit more international condemnation of military continuation operations, including air force attacks reported by independent media.
A second armed opposition group, the coalition of three powerful ethnic minority guerrilla troops called the Three Brotherhood Alliance, announced on Tuesday that it will also be holding a one-month unilateral ceasefire.
However, Min Aung Hlaing appears to have refused to implement a ceasefire, and in a speech Tuesday said the military, although currently not in combat operations, will continue to take necessary defensive measures against several ethnic armed groups who have been carrying out military training equivalent to hostile actions.
It was not immediately clear whether the military was blocking humanitarian aid. In the past, it initially refused to allow foreign rescue teams or many emergency supplies after Cyclone Nargis in 2008. Even granting foreign aid was severely restricted.
However, in this case, Min Aung Frening said on the day of the earthquake the state would accept outside help.
Tom Andrews, a Burmese rights monitor commissioned by the UNBacked Human Rights Council, said military attacks must be stopped to promote aid in X.
“Myanmar’s focus must be on saving lives without taking lives,” he said.
