‘I still have no idea how to carry on’: Myanmar quake victims continue to struggle nearly a year on

MANDALAY – His tiny chest rises and falls with each laboured breath as the severely underweight two-month-old lies asleep in his mother San San Wai’s arms.

The premature Agga Kaung Myat spent two months in the intensive care unit before returning home to a tarpaulin makeshift tent in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city.

The baby boy did not have a home to return to because his family’s four-storey house collapsed in a devastating 7.7-magnitude earthquake that struck central Myanmar in March 2025.

Ms San San Wai, 34, said the family had lived in that house for only two years before it collapsed. “I still have no idea how to carry on with my life, as my husband also lost his job. I even had to borrow money to deliver my baby. So, we cannot afford to build another house again,” she lamented.

About 10 months after the quake, thousands of families in Myanmar are still struggling to rebuild their homes and lives, with some saying that humanitarian aid is inadequate.

The quake affected about 1.7 million people, according to the UN. It killed more than 3,000 people, injured about 3,900, and damaged or destroyed more than 55,000 homes across many regions in Myanmar, including Mandalay, Sagaing and the capital Naypyitaw.

In response to queries from The Straits Times, the United Nations in Myanmar said that “housing reconstruction is progressing slowly relative to needs”, and “needs remain significant”.

Current support, the UN in Myanmar said, has reached almost 10,000 households, but about 13,700 families are still waiting for assistance to reconstruct their homes.

When ST visited Mandalay recently, signs of destruction from the quake were seen around the city, including unoccupied quake-cracked buildings, fallen concrete debris and tilted structures.

A UNESCO spokesperson told ST that more than 8,000 religious and cultural sites across the quake-hit areas in Myanmar may have been damaged or destroyed.

In Mandalay, the spires of a number of gilded stupas had fallen off and crashed into bits, while some religious structures suffered visible damage.

Countries such as China, India and South Korea have helped provide some aid, in the form of items such as rice, tents and medical supplies, from time to time since the 2025 quake. But the aid either never reached some victims or had already dried up, going by ST’s interviews with quake victims.

Ms San San Wai, who also has two daughters aged six and 11, said she does not have enough money for her three children’s food and education. Living out of a makeshift tent also worries the housewife, as her children’s health is being affected.

“The government initially told us that it will support those who lost their homes during the earthquake and help with rebuilding. They asked us to submit a form with pictures of our damaged building,” she said. “We did it two months after the earthquake, but since then, we haven’t heard anything from them.”

Another Mandalay resident, who declined to be named for safety reasons, lost her husband to the quake. It was one tragedy after another, as she was diagnosed with a terminal illness after losing her life partner and the sole breadwinner.

With tears welling up in her eyes, the 58-year-old said: “I was diagnosed with cervical cancer about two months after the earthquake killed my husband. I even sold my property to fight the cancer. But I cannot afford to get more treatment anymore.”

Out of money and without a home, she added: “I would be happier if I got more support from the government. But I have nothing to say. If the government does not support me (and would rather spend money conducting the election), there is nothing I can do.”

On Dec 28, nine months after the quake, the Myanmar junta held the first phase of its three-phase election, which many described as a sham because the polls are not being conducted nationwide, and the majority of citizens are boycotting them during the ongoing coup.

The coup has already displaced about 3.4 million people across the country since February 2021. In the Mandalay region alone, UN refugee agency UNHCR’s latest report said 93,200 people were displaced since the start of the February 2021 putsch.

The UN World Food Programme said in December 2025 that

more than 12 million people in Myanmar will face acute hunger in 2026

, with around one million of them facing emergency levels of hunger.

In an assessment in June after the quake, the World Bank’s division director for Thailand and Myanmar, Ms Melinda Good, said: “The earthquake caused significant loss of life and displacement, while exacerbating already difficult economic conditions, further testing the resilience of Myanmar’s people.”

The World Bank estimated that economic output losses attributable to the earthquake would be about 4 per cent of Myanmar’s gross domestic product, or about US$2.6 billion (S$3.3 billion) in the year ending in March.

It also noted that “poverty remains high, especially among internally displaced populations”.

Even before the 2025 quake, Myanmar had already seen a spike in poverty levels.

The UN Development Programme had earlier flagged that poverty in Myanmar had escalated dramatically by the end of 2023, with 49.7 per cent of the population living below the national poverty line and an additional 25 per cent barely above it. In effect, 42 million people are living well below, or barely above, subsistence levels. This marks a significant increase in poverty from 24.8 per cent in 2017.

To Ms San San Wai, the economic strain is real. She said it has been more than two months since she received any form of aid. “It has been quite a while since the earthquake struck. So, my hope of getting help from others is starting to fade away. We are on our own now.”