31/03/2025

MONDAY | MAR 31, 2025

7

Aid rushes into Myanmar

BANGKOK: Myanmar’s neighbours sent warships and aircraft laden with relief materials and rescue personnel yesterday, as international aid gained steam after a massive earthquake ravaged much of the poor Southeast Asian nation. At least 1,600 people have been killed and 3,400 injured by Friday’s 7.7-magnitude quake, one of Myanmar’s strongest in a century, its military government said. “All military and civilian hospitals, as well as healthcare workers, must work together in a coordinated and efficient manner to ensure effective medical response,” said State Administration Council chairman Min Aung Hlaing. The US Geological Service’s predictive modelling estimated Myanmar’s death toll could top 10,000 and losses could exceed the country’s annual economic output. The quake jolted parts of Thailand, bringing down an under-construction skyscraper and killing 17 people across the capital, according to Thai authorities. At least 78 people remained trapped under the debris of the collapsed building. The deadliest natural disaster to hit Myanmar in years damaged critical infrastructure, including an airport, highways and bridges, slowing humanitarian operations, according to the United Nations. The quake hit a nation already in chaos with a civil war that has escalated since the 2021 military coup, which ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and sparked an armed uprising. The fighting has battered the largely agrarian economy of Myanmar, formerly called Burma, displaced over 3.5 million people and left essential services, such as healthcare, in tatters. The opposition National Unity Government, which includes remnants of the previous administration, said militias under its command would pause all offensive military action for two weeks. “The NUG, together with resistance forces, allied organisations and civil society groups, will carry out rescue operations,” it said in a statement. In some of the country’s hardest hit areas, residents said government assistance was scarce, leaving people to fend for themselves. The entire town of Sagaing near the quake’s epicentre was devastated, said resident Han Zin. o Rescue teams from India, China, Singapore and Thailand on the ground until a jammed door blocked their passage. “Is there anybody inside?” they shouted. Dozens of people gathered outside hushed, straining to hear a cry, a voice, a whisper. But there were no sounds. The six-storey building was reduced to one and a half by Friday’s earthquake, the lower floors pancaked into a tilted-over mass of concrete. Strands of steel rebar emerged from the broken shell of its top floor, twisted into the shape of tangled tree roots by the force of the 7.7-magnitude tremor. A giant teddy bear in a pink T-shirt lay face down in the rubble. At least seven people were trapped inside, locals said, including two teachers and several children. Seven others had died while two were extracted alive in the hours after the quake struck. Scores of family members and neighbours sat

Rescuers at the site of a collapsed building in Mandalay on Saturday. – REUTERSPIC

classroom when the quake struck and brought the structure down. “I ran away from the building,” said teacher Kim Ma Zin, 35, who suffered a cut to her forehead. Rescuers used pneumatic drills to break up concrete blocks to remove them and a mechanical digger demolished a toilet block to make room for another vehicle to approach. There was little talk among the huddled watchers, and Yin Nu struggled to cling to hope that her English graduate daughter, one of her four children, had survived. “My son told me that it seems like his sister is not going to make it,” she said. “It’s hard for me to accept it – she’s my daughter.” She could feel her presence, she said, clasping her hands and insisting her child would not leave her. “She is a very considerate daughter. Every time she goes to the temple or visits the pagoda, she always prays that she can be the daughter that can look after her parents.” – AFP Chinese rescue personnel have arrived, including one that crossed in overland from its southwestern province of Yunnan, China’s embassy in Myanmar said on social media. A 78-member team from Singapore, accompanied by rescue dogs, was operating in Mandalay yesterday, Myanmar state-media said. – Reuters and Sagaing, were struggling to cope with the influx of injured people, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. India, China and Thailand are among the neighbours that have sent relief materials and teams, along with aid and personnel from Malaysia, Singapore and Russia. Indian military aircraft made multiple sorties into Myanmar on Saturday, including ferrying supplies and search-and-rescue crews to Naypyidaw, the purpose-made capital, parts of which have been wrecked by the earthquake. The Indian army will help set up a field hospital in Mandalay, and two navy ships carrying supplies are heading to Myanmar’s commercial capital of Yangon, said Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar.

Yin Nu, whose 26-year-old daughter Yamin Shwe Zin was one of the teachers trapped inside, sat to one side. She had arrived on the evening of the quake. At one point, rescuers heard her call from inside: “I am teacher Yamin. I am alive inside. Please help me. I am thirsty.” Her mother has been waiting ever since. “I couldn’t sleep all night. I was saying if you’re gone, at least show me your hand,” she said tearfully. “I was around the building like a crazy person. I could only call out my daughter’s name and cry because I couldn’t do anything.” The school in Paleik, on the outskirts of Myanmar’s second-largest city, normally has around 200 students aged 12 to 15, but the term has finished and most had left. All of those in one of its two buildings escaped. But others were having a dance practice for the upcoming Water Festival, the traditional Myanmar new year, in a fifth-floor “What we are seeing here is widespread destruction – many buildings have collapsed,” he said by phone, adding that much of the town had been without electricity since the disaster hit and drinking water was running out. “We have received no aid, and there are no rescue workers in sight.” Across the Irrawaddy river in Mandalay, a rescue worker said most operations in the country’s second-largest city were being conducted by small, self-organised resident groups that lack the required equipment. “We have been approaching collapsed buildings, but some structures remain unstable while we work,” he said, asking not to be named because of security concerns. Scores of people were feared trapped under collapsed buildings across Mandalay but most could not be reached or pulled out without heavy machinery, another humanitarian worker and two residents said. “People are still stuck in the buildings, they can’t take people out,” said a resident who asked not to be named. Hospitals in parts of central and northwestern Myanmar, including Mandalay

Thai women break down after hearing of the death of a relative at a building site in Bangkok yesterday. – AFPPIC

Fears and hopes at collapsed school MANDALAY: Rescuers clambered into the wreckage of the Wisdom Villa Private High School on the outskirts of Mandalay on Saturday huddled on the ground, watching quietly, hoping for more good news.

Woman rescued from wrecked flat MANDALAY: Rescuers pulled a woman alive from the wreckage of a collapsed apartment building in Mandalay on Saturday. Applause rang out as Phyu Lay Khaing, 30, was brought out of the Sky Villa Condominium by rescuers and carefully removed from the rubble by stretcher. Her husband Ye Aung, who had been waiting anxiously for news, embraced her as the stretcher was lifted down. “In the beginning, I didn’t think she would be alive,”Ye Aung said as he waited for his wife to emerge from the debris. “I am very happy that I heard good news,” said the trader, who has two sons with his wife – eight-year-old William and Ethan, five. As the ambulance drove away to hospital, Ye Aung was seen through the window clutching his wife’s hand. A Red Cross official said more than 90 people could still be trapped under the remains of the apartment block. – AFP