A 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck Myanmar on Mar. 28, aftershocks followed and the death toll continues to rise. The massive quake also rattled neighboring country, Thailand.
According to AP News, the death toll in Myanmar rose from above 150 as of Mar. 28 to 3,455 as of Apr. 5. The exact death toll remains unclear as emergency relief efforts and rescue operations continue. Currently, there are also 4,840 injured and 214 missing.
BBC News wrote, “The US Geological Survey’s modelling estimates Myanmar’s death toll could exceed 10,000, with losses surpassing annual economic output.”
According to AP News, in Bangkok, Thailand, at least 18 people were killed, many at a construction site near the popular Chatuchak market, where an unfinished high-rise building collapsed. There were also 33 injured and 78 missing, primarily at the construction site.
BBC News reported that the earthquake’s epicenter was located 10 miles northwest of Sagang, a town near Myanmar’s second largest city, Mandalay, and about 125 miles north of the capital, Nay Pyi Taw. Aftershocks also followed, with a 6.4 magnitude quake striking just 12 minutes after the first quake hit. The latest aftershock on Mar. 30 had a magnitude of 5.1.
This quake was the second most powerful in the country’s recorded history, after a 8.0 magnitude struck east of Mandalay in May 1912.
In Myanmar, there were extensive damages to infrastructure across the country. Quoting their military government’s leader, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, AP News reported that 5,223 buildings, 1,824 schools, 2,752 Buddhist monasterial living quarters, 4,817 pagodas and temples, 167 hospitals and clinics, 169 bridges, 198 dams and 184 sections of the country’s main highway were damaged by the earthquake.
In Bangkok, besides the collapse of the high-rise under construction, there were no other prominent damages to infrastructure, except videos showing rooftop pools spilling over the sides of swaying buildings.
This led to the collapse of the high-rise being a striking occurrence, considering that Bangkok sits more than 621 miles from the epicenter of the quake.
With an ongoing civil war and dire humanitarian crisis in Myanmar, relief efforts have faced complications.
The civil war began after the army seized power from the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021.
Myanmar’s ruling military declared a temporary ceasefire in the country’s civil war to facilitate relief efforts; this is slated to be a two-week pause in offensive military operations that will run until Apr. 22.
However, the resistance forces opposed to military rule have reserved the right to fight in self-defense.
AP News wrote, “Although reports of diplomatic activity focus on earthquake relief, there is awareness that the crisis in Myanmar cannot end until the war there stops, and the country’s neighbors have been leading efforts to find a path for peace.”
International rescue teams from at least 15 Asian and Western government rescue teams have come forward to aid Myanmar through this crisis, including from Russia, China, India and several other Southeast Asian countries.
The European Union, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and others have also announced millions of dollars in aid.
“Day after day, Chinese rescue teams haul children and elderly people from collapsed buildings as cameras beam the thanks of grateful survivors around the world. Russian medical teams show off field hospitals erected in a flash to tend the wounded,” as written by AP News.
While several countries have been actively aiding Myanmar, there has been an absence in rescue teams and disaster-response crews from the United States.
AP News also wrote, “While Myanmar’s military junta and civil war have posed challenges, the U.S. government has worked with local partners there previously to successfully provide aid for decades, including after deadly storms in 2008 and 2023, aid officials say.”
According to The New York Times, the lack of aid by the U.S. came as a result of Trump’s administration dismantling the main American aid organization, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Three experienced aid workers with USAID, who were sent to Myanmar to assess how the U.S. could help with the earthquake relief efforts, were fired just days after arriving in Myanmar.
These firings were just among the thousands of terminated contracts. According to AP News, the Trump administration, through Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency teams, froze USAID funding, terminated thousands of contracts and fired all but a handful of its staff globally. It accused the agency of waste and of advancing liberal causes.
The New York Times wrote, “Six Democratic senators sent a letter to the Trump administration on Wednesday denouncing its lack of aid efforts in the earthquake zone, saying it was failing its first test of the nation’s ability to continue humanitarian aid during the dismantlement of U.S.A.I.D.”
In a time of diplomatic and humanitarian crises, several other nations rally to aid Myanmar in a race to save more lives and provide as much relief efforts as possible while the military ceasefire is still in effect.