The military-led government of the nation announced a higher casualty count on Sunday and established a weeklong mourning period starting on Monday. The search and rescue effort was reportedly being slowed by a lack of resources, equipment, and damaged infrastructure.
At midday on Friday, a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck Myanmar, causing extensive damage, including in Naypitaw, the country’s capital. Shortly thereafter, a second, magnitude 6. 4 tremor occurred.
The earthquake’s epicenter was located 17 kilometers (11 miles) west of Mandalay, the second-largest city in the world, with a population of nearly 1.5 million.
At least 3,400 people have been injured and more than 300 have vanished in the Mandalay region, where tremors have damaged infrastructure like mosques, bridges, and the city’s airport, according to Maj. General Zaw Min Tun, a spokesman for the government.
At least 18 people were killed at a construction site in Bangkok when a partially constructed high-rise collapsed as a result of the earthquake, which also erupted in neighboring Thailand.
Rescue effort was slowed
Rescuers have expressed concern that the search for survivors is failing and that the majority of survivors must be rescued within three days of a catastrophe if they want to survive.
Myanmar’s neighbors, including India, China, Malaysia, and Singapore, have sent warships and planes to deliver relief supplies.
Wai Phyo, a rescuer in Myanmar, claimed that Mandalay’s recovery teams were doing their best, but were overwhelmed by the destruction’s size and the lack of “proper equipment.”
Although the official figure for the region’s population is probably many times higher than the official figure, little is known about the damage that many places have experienced due to telecommunication outages.
The International Rescue Committee’s deputy director of programs in Myanmar, Lauren Ellery, told the AP news agency, “We’re really not clear on the scale of the destruction at this point.”
According to Ellery, the earthquake’s state of emergency and ongoing landslides hampered operations in six regions.
Because telecommunications are slow, she said, “They were talking about a town near Mandalay where 80% of the buildings were reported to have collapsed.”
