Aid groups in the worst-hit areas of Myanmar said they were in urgent need of shelter, food and water after a powerful earthquake killed more than 2,700 people, but said the country’s civil war could prevent them from helping those in need.
The death toll has reached 2,719 and is expected to rise above 3,000, Myanmar’s military leader Min Aung Hlaing said in a televised address on Tuesday. He said 4,521 people were injured and 441 were missing.
The 7.7-magnitude earthquake that struck at lunchtime on Friday was the strongest to hit the Southeast Asian country, toppling both ancient pagodas and modern buildings.
In neighboring Thailand, rescue teams tried to search for life in the rubble of collapsed skyscrapers in the capital, Bangkok, but acknowledged that time was against them.
In Myanmar’s Mandalay region, 50 children and two teachers died when their preschool collapsed, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
“In the hardest-hit areas, communities are struggling to meet their basic needs, such as access to clean water and sanitation, while emergency teams are working tirelessly to find survivors and provide life-saving assistance,” a UN report said.
Shelter, food, water and medical assistance are desperately needed in places like Mandalay, near the epicenter of the quake, the International Rescue Committee said.
“People who survived the horrors of the earthquake are now sleeping on the roads or in open fields, fearing aftershocks,” an IRC worker in Mandalay said in a report.
Myanmar’s civil war, which saw the junta seize power in a coup in 2021, has complicated efforts to reach the injured and displaced by the Southeast Asian nation’s biggest earthquake in a century.
Amnesty International said the junta should be allowed to deliver aid to areas not under its control. Rebel groups say the junta has carried out air strikes since the quake.
