Category World News

Aftershocks are making it harder to rescue people in Myanmar, two days after one of its worst earthquakes killed more than 1, 700 people. Workers are searching for survivors under rubble as far away as Bangkok, in neighbouring Thailand.

When I was a school student, every morning, we would gather in the schoolyard and sing songs dedicated to our land, Palestine. Many of our classes would teach us about our culture and traditions deeply rooted in Palestinian land.

Every March 30, we would mark Land Day. Girls would wear embroidered dresses and boys would wear white shirts and keffiyeh. We would sing under a raised Palestinian flag and commemorate the Palestinian land struggle.

I fully realised the true meaning of what I was taught about this struggle only when I faced displacement from my home, when I faced the very real possibility of losing my land.

I was born and raised in the Shujayea neighbourhood on the eastern flank of Gaza City. It is a centuries-old neighbourhood, where farmers and traders settled. Over time, it became one of Gaza’s most densely populated neighbourhoods, known for its strong community ties and history of resistance. It is no coincidence that one of its most prominent people was Dr Refaat Alareer, a poet, a scholar, and my professor in English, who inspired me to write and resist.

My family has lived in Shujayea for centuries. They built home after home in the same area until they created a long street known as Mushtaha Street. This is not just a name, it is a testament to just how deep our roots run in this land.

We not only have our homes in Shujayea but also our farmland. I grew up playing on my grandfather’s olive grove, which he had inherited from his ancestors. The olive trees taught us how to love our land, and how to be steadfast like them.

I have never thought, even for a minute, of leaving my home, my neighbourhood. As a child, I never dreamed of living elsewhere, I wanted to stay where my ancestors had happily lived, to inherit the land, to tend to the olive trees.

The first time we had to flee our Shujayea was when Israel attacked in 2014. I was very young at that time, but I remember every single moment of our evacuation. I remember the missiles and shrapnel flying around and the sound of the screaming and crying. It was a traumatic experience, but throughout it, I was sure that we would soon return.

Then, it happened again almost 10 years later. Throughout the genocide, my family and I had to flee our home more than 10 times. The longest we had to stay away from our neighbourhood was three months. But we never went too far. Despite the extremely difficult conditions, we did not flee to the south, we stayed in the north.

Shujayea endured two invasions during this war, the first in December 2023, and the second in June 2024. The second came suddenly, without warning, on a summer morning while residents were still in their homes.

When the Israeli tanks reached Shujayea, they targeted markets and old restaurants, electricity poles and water pumps, levelling many areas until they were unrecognisable. The once-busy streets turned grey with destruction.

My family home was bombed and partially destroyed. My grandfather’s land was not spared either. The trees that stood for generations, that gave fruit countless seasons, were uprooted and burned.

The loss of his olive grove proved too much for my grandfather. Within three months of hearing the devastating news, he passed away.

Today, we face the prospect of being displaced once again. People from the eastern part of Shujayea have started fleeing under threats from the Israeli army once again. We do not know what is going to happen next. People are afraid but are still hoping there will be another ceasefire.

This year, marking Land Day carries a different meaning: Despite the continuing genocidal war, we are still here, we are still standing, and we are still holding on to the land that we inherited from our ancestors. We will not give up.

On this day, I remember Dr Alareer’s poem:
O, Earth
Hug me
And hold me tight
Or devour me
To suffer no more.
I love thee
So take me.
Make me rich.
Make me dirt.
Gone are the days of serenity.
Guns are the words of humanity.
I have no food but a thorn,
No sport but a sigh.
For a soldier needs to feel high.
O, Earth,
If in life I am to hurt
Let my dirt in you give birth.
O, Earth.

Sagaing, Myanmar – “Now with every gust of wind, the smell of dead bodies fills the air”, says Thar Nge, a resident of Sagaing – the city closest to the epicentre of the devastating magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar on Friday.

“At this point, more bodies are being recovered than survivors”, Thar Nge told Al Jazeera on Sunday, explaining how rescue workers from nearby Mandalay had just arrived in Sagaing earlier in the day, after the Yadanabon Bridge, spanning the Irrawaddy River, reopened.

The nearby Ava Bridge, built some 90 years ago during British colonial rule, was among the many structures to collapse when the quake hit more than 48 hours ago, killing at least 1, 700 people and injuring more than 3, 400 – a preliminary casualty toll that is certain to rise as the full extent of the catastrophe becomes known in the coming hours and days.

“Rescue teams from Mandalay couldn’t reach us immediately because a bridge collapsed. That’s why they only arrived today”, said Thar Nge, surveying the ruins of the city and telling how he had now lost hope of finding his son alive.

He said many in the city had lost loved ones.

Almost 90 bodies have been recovered so far – that Thar Nge knew of – compared with 36 people rescued from their flattened homes, businesses and the numerous Buddhist temples in the area.

“Many people, as well as monks and nuns in Sagaing, have been trapped under buildings, including monasteries and nunneries”, he said.

“The focus is shifting from rescuing the living to retrieving and burying the dead”.

The smell of decaying bodies is everywhere in Sagaing.

In Mandalay, the country’s second largest city located 22km (14 miles) to the east, a shortage of specialised equipment has left rescue workers and the relatives of people trapped digging with their bare hands to find survivors.

Conditions are harsh.

Along with crumpled roads, entire blocks of buildings either badly damaged or destroyed, and power cut to most of Mandalay and Sagaing, both cities sweltered in temperatures as high as 39 degrees Celsius (102 degrees Fahrenheit) &nbsp, on Sunday.

Earlier, a distraught Ko Lin Maw could do little but wait for help at his toppled home in Mandalay.

“My mother and my two sons are still trapped under the debris”, he told Al Jazeera.

Even if he could get a signal on his mobile phone to call for help, the few rescue teams in Mandalay are prioritising larger sites of disaster where many people are believed trapped, Ko Lin Maw said.

“The number of rescue workers is clearly not enough to save victims”, he said, lamenting that 48 hours had passed since the earthquake hit and neither an adequate number of emergency workers nor aid supplies had yet reached the city.

Myanmar fire department worker Htet Wai arrived in Mandalay on Sunday morning from the country’s commercial capital, Yangon, located 627km (390 miles) to the south.

With communications in the aftermath of the quake severely hampered, leaving barely-working mobile phone services and sketchy internet connections, Htet Wai told how his team had relied on information posted on Facebook to determine where their assistance was needed most.

“This morning, as soon as we arrived, we went to a location we had found online”, Htet Wai said.

But their first attempted rescue ended up being the recovery of a body, he said.

Htet Wai said he and his colleagues would remain hopeful despite the situation being so dire.

“With this heat, I fear we will find more bodies than survivors. But we will do our best to save as many lives as possible”, he told Al Jazeera.

Alongside more skilled rescue workers and heavy equipment to move rubble, there was an urgent need for body bags, he said.

Weather forecasts predict that this central part of Myanmar could see daytime temperatures reach 40C (104F) and above this week, and Htet Wai said the bodies of those who have died and are still trapped under buildings are decaying rapidly.

“The body we found was already decomposing. It’s heartbreaking”, he said.

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