Survivors still being found after Myanmar’s quake, but military attacks could harm relief effort
BANGKOK, Thailand- Rescuers pulled two men alive from the ruins of a hotel in Myanmar’s capital early Wednesday, but most teams were finding only bodies five days after a massive earthquake hit, and concerns were growing that continued military attacks on resistance forces could jeopardize relief efforts.
The 7.7 magnitude earthquake hit midday Friday, toppling thousands of buildings, collapsing bridges and buckling roads. The death toll rose to 2,886 Wednesday, with another 4,639 injured, according to state television MRTV. Local reports suggest much higher figures.
The earthquake came in the midst of a civil war in Myanmar, making a dire humanitarian crisis even worse. More than 3 million people had been displaced from their homes and nearly 20 million were in need even before it hit, according to the United Nations.
Two of the major armed resistance forces fighting the military, which seized power in 2021 from the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, have announced ceasefires to facilitate the humanitarian response to the earthquake, but the military has not relented in its attacks.
“Once again they are putting regime survival above the interests of people, even at a time of calamity,” said Richard Horsey, senior adviser for Myanmar with the Crisis Group.
In the capital Naypyitaw, a team of Turkish and local rescue workers used an endoscopic camera to locate Naing Lin Tun on a lower floor of the damaged hotel where he worked. They pulled him gingerly through a hole jackhammered through a floor and loaded him on to a gurney nearly 108 hours after he was first trapped.
Shirtless and covered in dust, the 26-year-old appeared weak but conscious in a video released by the local fire department, as he was fitted with an IV drip and taken away. State-run MRTV reported later in the day another 26-year-old was saved from the same building, more than 121 hours after the quake struck.
Another man was rescued by a team of Malaysian and local crews from a collapsed home in the Sagaing township, near the epicenter of the earthquake close to Myanmar’s second largest city, Mandalay.
The earthquake also rocked neighboring 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 35 injured, primarily at the construction site.
The Three Brotherhood Alliance, one of a powerful group of militias that has taken a large swath of the country from the military, announced a unilateral one-month ceasefire on Tuesday to facilitate the humanitarian response. The shadow opposition National Unity Government founded by lawmakers ousted in 2021 had already called a ceasefire for its forces.
The announcements put pressure on the military government to follow suit, said Morgan Michaels, a Singapore-based analyst with the International Institute of Strategic Studies who runs its Myanmar Conflict Map project.
Even if the military does, it’s too early to say whether a pause in fighting could lead to something longer lasting, he said.
“There will be some, especially in the international community, who will hope that a humanitarian pause could be a building block for a wider de-escalation, but there will also be strong resistance from parts of Myanmar society that reject the idea of further negotiations with the regime,” he told The Associated Press.
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