Death toll from earthquake rises to more than 2,700 people in Myanmar

LAST UPDATE | 14 hrs ago

The death toll from the devastating 7.7 magnitude earthquake that hit Myanmar has surpassed 2,700, with thousands more injured, Myanmar media reported on Tuesday.

The head of Myanmar’s military government, senior general Min Aung Hlaing, told a forum that 2,719 people have now been found dead, with 4,521 others injured and 441 missing, the Western News online portal reported.

With many areas hit by Friday’s earthquake still not reached by rescue crews, those numbers are still expected to rise.

The earthquake’s epicentre was near the country’s second-largest city, Mandalay.

Most of the reports of casualties so far have come from Mandalay and the capital, Naypyitaw.

“The needs are massive, and they are rising by the hour,” said Julia Rees, Unicef’s deputy representative for Myanmar.

“The window for lifesaving response is closing. Across the affected areas, families are facing acute shortages of clean water, food, and medical supplies.”

Myanmar’s fire department said that 403 people have been rescued in Mandalay and 259 bodies have been found so far. In one incident alone, 50 Buddhist monks who were taking a religious exam in a monastery were killed when the building collapsed and 150 more are thought to be buried in the rubble.

The World Health Organisation said that more than 10,000 buildings overall are known to have collapsed or been severely damaged in central and northwest Myanmar.

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The earthquake also rocked neighbouring Thailand, causing a high-rise building under construction to collapse and burying many workers.

Two bodies were pulled from the rubble on Monday but dozens were still missing. Overall, there were 20 people killed and 34 injured in Bangkok, primarily at the construction site.

Foreign aid workers have been arriving slowly to help in the rescue efforts, but progress was still slow with a lack of heavy machinery in many places.

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.

The UN says at least 3.5 million people were displaced by the conflict before the quake, many of them at risk of hunger.

The ruling military 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 for all parties to cease hostilities and focus on protecting civilians and delivering aid.

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.

International aid efforts since the quake have included an emergency appeal for $100 million to help victims from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

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

Additional reporting from AFP