Does the Myanmar earthquake spell the end for the junta?
A week after an earthquake flattened central Myanmar, the country's shunned dictator swapped his green army uniform for a neat black suit and headed to Bangkok.
It was a diplomatic triumph for General Min Aung Hlaing. Since seizing power four years ago and plunging his country into a civil war he has been treated as pariah on the international stage, with overseas trips only to China and Russia, his key backers.
But on Thursday he was welcomed into Thailand for the first time since 2021, where he rubbed shoulders with leaders from India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal at a summit of countries from the Bay of Bengal. Disaster management was on the agenda.
The trip exploits a window opened by the earthquake to ramp up diplomacy, and is a major moment for a man who has long desired legitimacy on the international stage.
Yet at home, his position is weaker than ever.
'This is a time of jeopardy for him,' said Richard Horsey, a Myanmar researcher at the Crisis Group think tank.
'I'm sure he'll be relieved to leave the chaos and destruction behind and spend a day with other leaders, and imagine that he is gradually being accepted on the world stage… [but] the grim reality will reassert itself as soon as he returns.'
He added: 'There is significant elite discontent that will only grow if the regime response remains chaotic and ineffective.'
It is now a week since Myanmar was hit by a 7.7 magnitude earthquake, flattening thousands of buildings, toppling bridges and buckling roads.
At least 3,100 people have been confirmed dead – a figure that is almost certain to rise as more bodies are pulled from mounds of rubble and mangled metal.
The south-east Asian country, a former British colony, has largely been run by kleptocratic and corrupt military dictatorships since the 1960s. But the quake has compounded an existing humanitarian crisis: the civil war has killed thousands, displaced three million people, and left 20 million people in need of aid.
Now, already stretched hospitals are overwhelmed with earthquake victims, with doctors forced to treat patients outside in 40C temperatures amid fears buildings could collapse. Clean water, food, medicines and shelter are in short supply, and rain forecast for the coming week will only make things worse.
'Our entire family has to sleep by the roadside,' May Thaw Lwin, who lives in the hard-hit city of Mandalay, told the Telegraph. 'There are constant aftershocks, and even if we wanted to stay at a friend's house, we're afraid it might collapse too.
'Sleeping outside means getting bitten by a lot of mosquitoes,' she added. 'We're also struggling with water and food shortages… and the smell of decomposition is getting stronger. Living in this country, it's not just about having bad luck anymore. It feels like we're the unluckiest people in the world.'
Although as much as 60 per cent of Myanmar is now held by opposition groups, the disaster has disproportionately affected junta-held territory – including the capital Naypyidaw, their seat of power.
But although Min Aung Hlaing has been photographed visiting hospitals and inspecting rescue efforts, most view the military's response as slow. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has also accused the junta of restricting aid supplies to areas where local communities do not back its rule.
Mr Horsey said Min Aung Hlaing has failed to even arrange search and rescue or emergency shelter for civil servants in the capital.
'This disaster plays to all his weaknesses,' he said. 'He has been criticised within regime circles for being indecisive, micro-managing and unstrategic. Those traits have all been in evidence since the quake. His detractors… will have new ammunition.'
Morgan Michaels, a research fellow for South East Asian security and defence at the Institute for Strategic Studies, said: 'The military is in a weaker position now. Their administrative capacity has been hit hard and its communications lines may have been severed by the earthquake. Min Aung Hlaing will be blamed – this is bad for him.'
There is also mounting anger that the military has continued to drop bombs since the earthquake struck.
While opposition groups – including the exiled National Unity Government, and the powerful Three Brotherhood Alliance – rapidly announced ceasefires, the junta held off. On April 2 they were pushed to do so, but the UN said it is investigating 16 reports of airstrikes since then.
David Eubank, head of the Free Burma Rangers, which operates inside Myanmar, also sent The Telegraph unpublishable photographs of people and buildings hit in airstrikes in Shan and Karenni state since Wednesday. In one, a body is burned beyond recognition, another image appears to show a person decapitated.
Commentators said the military's drive to maintain airstrikes is itself a sign of weakness, not power, especially as it comes after a stretch of time where the junta has struggled to recruit new soldiers and lost several key battles.
'The earthquake has shaken more than just buildings, it's rattled the junta's already fragile grip on power,' said Nang San Htwe, a 27-year-old in central Myanmar.
'As they seek legitimacy abroad, the crisis at home exposes their vulnerability. Natural disasters don't discriminate, but their impact does. With resources stretched and legitimacy crumbling, the earthquake may prove to be another fault line in the junta's rule. It's not just about survival, it's about control.'
But it's not yet clear how the overall civil war will be affected by the earthquake.
Mr Michaels said it would be a good time for opposition groups to strike a vulnerable junta, 'but the optics of that could be bad' and any new offensive may backfire.
'No straight path to a peaceful future'
Mr Horsey added: 'As regards the conflict, there is no straight path from here to a more peaceful future. The regime and the resistance groups born after the coup are locked in an existential battle to eliminate the other.'
Yet for those struggling to pick up their lives inside the deeply superstitious country, the earthquake – which followed the military's show of might at an armed forces day parade on Thursday – has been taken as an omen that Min Aung Hlaing's days are numbered.
'Traditional Myanmar culture has always seen natural disasters as cosmic commentary on the leaders of the day, [that] 'bad things happen when there are bad rulers',' said Mr Horsey.
'As a deeply superstitious person himself, he knows that many people around him, and across the country, will interpret this earthquake as a consequence of the coup and the subsequent violence his regime has unleashed.'
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