Myanmar quake death toll rises past 1,600 as damage comes into focus

Washington Post

31-03-2025

The death toll in the powerful earthquake that struck central Myanmar on Friday has jumped to more than 1,600, the country's ruling military junta said Saturday, with an additional 3,408 injured. At least 10 more were killed in neighboring Thailand, where far-reaching tremors brought down a skyscraper in Bangkok, burying dozens of workers.
The scale of devastation in Myanmar only began to come into focus Saturday as limited communications returned to the most affected areas. International aid began to trickle into the isolated country even as concerns remained over the junta's willingness to allow humanitarian groups to operate freely amid its ongoing civil war with pro-democracy and ethnic rebels. Though Myanmar lies in a major seismic belt, the 7.7-magnitude earthquake, which struck at the relatively shallow depth of 6 miles, is one of the strongest that the country has seen in decades and is shaping up to be among its deadliest.
As many as 20 million people reside in the areas seriously affected by the quake, and many are now living without shelter or access to clean water, according to preliminary estimates from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Damage has been most acute in Mandalay, Myanmar's second-most-populous city and the former capital of the Burmese royal empire, which was about 11 miles from the quake's epicenter, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
At least 694 people were killed and 1,670 injured in the Mandalay region, military officials said Saturday. An independent network of medics, which partnered with a nonprofit, Data for Myanmar, similarly said hundreds were killed in Mandalay based on preliminary counts. There's been 'significant structural damage' in the city, including the 'collapse of multistory buildings, including religious sites,' the organizations said.
Cars were lined up outside cemeteries in the city as families struggled to find space to bury the dead, residents said. The number of casualties could continue to grow significantly, according to predictive modeling by the U.S. Geological Survey. 'Death tolls are increasing each and every hour,' said Zin Mar Aung, minister of foreign affairs for the National Unity Government (NUG), a parallel administration made up of pro-democracy opposition leaders.
The quake struck a swath of central Myanmar that includes areas that are junta-controlled, rebel-controlled and contested. After Mandalay, the second-worst-hit city appears to be the capital and seat of the junta, Naypyidaw, with at least 96 dead, said military officials. Ethnic rebel groups and pro-democracy groups said most of their command centers, in the country's jungled borderlands, sustained limited damage.
After declaring a state of emergency in six regions, including Naypyidaw and Mandalay, the junta's military chief on Friday issued a rare appeal for international assistance, saying he was extending 'an open invitation' to nations willing to help. China on Saturday sent a disaster relief team of 37 people, according to the state-run CCTV. Singapore and Malaysia also sent disaster relief personnel, and India transported relief goods including tents and blankets to Yangon, authorities said.
By Saturday night, at least three international search and rescue teams were working on the ground in Mandalay to extract survivors, said Annette Hearns, the deputy head for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Myanmar.
Concerns remain over whether the junta will permit aid to reach those who need it, particularly in contested or rebel-controlled areas. The military in 2021 ousted a democratically elected government and violently quashed nationwide protests, sparking a civil war. In recent years, it has dramatically limited the movement of international aid groups inside Myanmar and, in previous disasters, prevented aid from reaching rebel-controlled areas, watchdog groups say. It has also blocked journalists and watchdog groups from entering the country, impairing independent assessments of major crises, including natural disasters.
Though the regime has now promised access to international humanitarians, 'we have to be worried about whether this will be possible,' said Richard Horsey, a senior adviser to Myanmar for the International Crisis Group. 'We now have to test what this regime has said, which is that it has opened the doors to aid,' he said.
In the hours after the quake, the military continued to carry out airstrikes in contested territory, said rebel leaders and watchdog groups.
Michael Dunford, Myanmar's country director for the U.N. World Food Program, said the agency was asking the junta for full access to address food needs across the country. 'It'll be necessary to facilitate that if in fact we'll be asked to operate as required,' Dunford said in a call from Naypyidaw. The agency was also conducting a 'rapid needs assessment' and expected to have teams in Mandalay by Sunday.
Mandalay's airport was battered during the quake and has suspended operations. Major highways to the city have been damaged, preventing large aid convoys from being able to enter. Much of the city is without electricity or internet, and many residents spent Friday night sleeping on the streets and in empty fields in fear of aftershocks, people told their families in patchy dispatches.
'It's like a death city,' Nat Khat, 34, said from a town outside Mandalay, adding that his parents inside the city told him no aid, either from international groups or the junta, had yet to be distributed. 'People are just helping one another,' he said.
The pace of rescue efforts has also been painfully slow, some residents said. Rescue teams led by the junta are 'failing,' said Zin Mar Aung, the NUG official. Many government services across Myanmar have been crippled since the start of the military coup, when thousands of civil servants chose not to work for the junta-led administration and in some instances picked up arms to fight or decamped to rebel-controlled areas. Local nonprofits and civil society organizations that would have helped with relief efforts have also been shuttered.
The NUG is looking to mobilize its network of aid groups to help with relief efforts but is wary these groups could be subject to arrest or violence by the junta. 'It's difficult to believe and trust the junta that our people will be safe,' Zin Mar Aung said.