Several countries, including Malaysia, Russia and China have dispatched rescuers and relief teams. Many humanitarian agencies have been cutting back their programmes in Myanmar after Donald Trump’s cuts to the US Agency for International Development. The World Food Programme’s country director, Michael Dunford, said it could be “days and weeks” before the true scale of the damage in Myanmar, which has been gripped by conflict since a military coup in 2021, is known. He said: “This was a highly complex, extremely difficult operating theatre before the conflict. This catastrophe – and it really is a catastrophe – is simply going to make it more so. Already a third of the population requires humanitarian assistance, that number is inevitably going to rise.”
Myanmar’s ruling military said Saturday on state television that the confirmed death toll from a devastating earthquake rose to more than 1,600. The new total of 1,644 is a sharp rise over the 1,002 total announced just hours earlier, underlining the difficulty of confirming casualties over a widespread region and the likelihood that the numbers will continue to grow from Friday’s quake. The number of injured increased to 3,408, while the missing figure rose to 139. Rescue efforts are underway especially in the major stricken cities of Mandalay and Naypyitaw, the capital. But even though teams and equipment have been flown in from other nations, they are hindered by the airports in those cities being damaged and apparently unfit to land planes.
Myanmar's military-led government said that 1,644 people have now been found dead and another 3,408 injured, with 139 others missing. The number of victims from the earthquake, which hit near Myanmar's second-largest city of Mandalay early on Friday afternoon local time, is likely to rise further as rescue work continues. The shockwaves from the 7.7. quake were felt in Thailand - where a skyscraper collapsed in capital city Bangkok - as well as China, India and Vietnam. Ten people are known to have died in Thailand, with many more injured and missing. A second, less strong earthquake hit a few minutes later.
