Search for quake survivors intensifies in Myanmar, Thailand; death toll expected to rise
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Rescue teams working to evacuate residents trapped under the rubble of a collapsed condominium in Mandalay.
PHOTO: AFP
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BANGKOK – Survivors were pulled out of rubble in Myanmar and signs of life were detected in the ruins of a skyscraper in Bangkok on March 31 as efforts intensified to find people trapped three days after a massive earthquake killed around 2,000.
Rescuers freed four people, including a pregnant woman and a girl, from collapsed buildings in Mandalay, the city in Myanmar near the epicentre of the 7.7-magnitude earthquake on March 28
Chinese rescue workers in red helmets carried one survivor, wrapped in a metallic thermal blanket, through heaps of shattered concrete and twisted metal at an apartment building in Mandalay, images carried by China’s state broadcaster CCTV showed.
Drone footage of the city showed a huge, multi-storey building pancaked into layers of concrete, but some gilded temples were still standing.
Civil war in Myanmar, where a military junta seized power in a coup in 2021, was complicating efforts to reach those injured or made homeless by the South-east Asian nation’s biggest quake in a century.
“Access to all victims is an issue... given the conflict situation. There are a lot of security issues to access some areas across the front lines in particular,” Mr Arnaud de Baecque, resident representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Myanmar, told Reuters.
One rebel group said Myanmar’s ruling military was still conducting air strikes
Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan called for an immediate ceasefire to help relief efforts.
In the Thai capital Bangkok, rescuers pulled out another body from the rubble of an under-construction skyscraper that collapsed in the quake, taking the death toll from the building collapse to 12, with a total of 19 dead across Thailand and 75 still missing at the building site.
Scanning machines and sniffer dogs were deployed at the site and Bangkok Deputy Governor Tavida Kamolvej said rescuers were urgently working out how to access an area where signs of life had been detected, three days on from the quake.
Realistic chances of survival diminish after 72 hours, she said, adding: “We have to speed up. We’re not going to stop even after 72 hours.”
In Myanmar, the state media reported on March 31 that the death toll has risen to 2,065, with more than 3,900 people injured and 270 still missing.
The military government has declared a week-long mourning period from March 31, with national flags to fly at half-mast until April 6.
Three Chinese nationals are among the dead, China’s state media said, along with two French people, according to the Foreign Ministry in Paris.
China, India and Thailand are among Myanmar’s neighbours that have sent relief materials and teams, along with aid and personnel from Malaysia, Singapore and Russia.
In a Facebook post on the night of March 31, the Singapore Civil Defence Force said its 80-strong Operation Lionheart team in Myanmar has found no signs of life after working at eight sites in the last 36 hours.
Working with the country’s National Disaster Management Office and fire department, the Singaporeans worked at seven sites in the capital Naypyitaw and one in Mandalay.
It said the team will continue its search and rescue operations in Naypyitaw.
Mr Yue Xin, head of the China search-and-rescue team that pulled people out of the rubble in Mandalay, told Xinhua: “It doesn’t matter how long we work. The most important thing is that we can bring hope to the local people.”
‘Grade 3’ emergency
The United Nations said it was rushing relief supplies to an estimated 23,000 quake-hit survivors in central Myanmar.
“Our teams in Mandalay are joining efforts to scale up the humanitarian response despite going through the trauma themselves,” said Ms Noriko Takagi, the UN refugee agency’s representative in Myanmar.
The United States pledged US$2 million (S$2.7 million) in aid “through Myanmar-based humanitarian assistance organisations”.
It said in a statement that an emergency response team from USAid, which is undergoing massive cuts under the Trump administration, is deploying to Myanmar.
More misery
The quake devastation has piled more misery on Myanmar, already in chaos from a civil war that grew out of a nationwide uprising after the military coup ousted the elected government
Critical infrastructure – including bridges, highways, airports and railways – across the country of 55 million lies damaged, slowing humanitarian efforts, while the conflict, which has battered the economy, displaced more than 3.5 million people and debilitated the health system, rages on.
“We see devastated communities across the country in Mandalay and (the capital) Naypyitaw in particular... People are still sleeping outside, can’t access their homes, so they don’t have capacity to cook their meals,” said the ICRC’s Mr de Baecque.
“All the health structures that have been damaged... are not delivering what they were doing in terms of healthcare and have a difficulty to absorb extra needs.”
Mandalay’s 1,000-bed general hospital has been evacuated, AFP reported, with hundreds of patients being treated outside.
Patients lay on gurneys in the hospital carpark, many with only a thin tarpaulin rigged up to shield them from the fierce tropical sun.
Relatives did their best to comfort them, holding their hands or waving bamboo fans over them.
The sticky heat has exhausted rescue workers and accelerated body decomposition, which could complicate identification.
“This is a very, very imperfect condition for everyone,” said one medic, who asked to remain anonymous.
“We’re trying to do what we can here. We are trying our best.” REUTERS, AFP
