Friday, 25 April 2025
Friday, 25 April 2025
The 7.7 magnitude earthquake hit midday Friday, toppling thousands of buildings, collapsing bridges and buckling roads. So far, 2,886 people have been reported dead in Myanmar and another 4,639 injured, according to state television MRTV, but local reports suggest much higher figures.
The earthquake also rocked neighbouring Thailand, causing the collapse of a high-rise building under construction in Bangkok. One body was removed from the rubble early Wednesday, raising the death total in Bangkok to 22 with 34 injured, primarily at the construction site.
Myanmar has been wracked by civil war and the earthquake is making a dire humanitarian crisis even worse, with more than 3 million people displaced from their homes and nearly 20 million in need even before it hit, according to the United Nations.
Countries have pledged millions in assistance to help Myanmar and humanitarian aid organisations with the monumental task ahead.
Australia on Wednesday said it was providing another USD 4.5 million, in addition to USD1.25 million it had already committed, and had a rapid response team on the ground.
India has flown in aid and sent two Navy ships with supplies as well as providing some 200 rescue workers. Multiple other countries have sent teams, including 270 people from China, 212 from Russia and 122 from the United Arab Emirates.
A three-person team from the US Agency for International Development arrived Tuesday to determine how best to respond given limited US resources due to the slashing of the foreign aid budget and dismantling of the agency as an independent operation. Washington said on the weekend it would provide USD 2 million in emergency assistance.
Many areas are without power, telephone or cell connections, and difficult to reach by road, but more reports are beginning to trickle in.
In Singu township, about 65 kilometres north of Mandalay, 27 gold miners were killed were killed in a cave-in, the independent Democratic Voice of Burma reported.
In the area of Inle Lake, northeast of the capital, many people died when homes built on wooden stilts in the water collapsed in the earthquake, the government's official Global New Light of Myanmar reported without providing specific figures.
