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Khaleej Times
01-04-2025
- Politics
- Khaleej Times
Death toll crosses 2,700 in Myanmar, Thailand after deadly quake; search for survivors intensifies
The death toll from a major earthquake in Myanmar has risen above 2,700, the head of the country's ruling junta said on Tuesday, with more than 4,500 people injured. Min Aung Hlaing said 2,719 people were confirmed dead and 441 still missing after Friday's shallow 7.7-magnitude quake. Rescuers freed four people, including a pregnant woman and a girl, from collapsed buildings in Mandalay, the city in central Myanmar near the epicentre of Friday's 7.7-magnitude earthquake, China's Xinhua news agency reported. Chinese rescue workers in red helmets carried one survivor, wrapped in a metallic thermal blanket, through heaps of shattered concrete and twisted metal at an apartment building in Mandalay, images carried by China's state broadcaster CCTV showed. Drone footage of the city showed a huge, multi-storey building pancaked into layers of concrete, but some gilded temples were still standing. One survivor in Mandalay said that after rescue workers pulled him out of the rubble of his restaurant, he had rented a bulldozer with his own money to try to find the body of one of his workers and make the building safe for his neighbours. Civil war in Myanmar, where a military junta seized power in a coup in 2021, was complicating efforts to reach those injured and made homeless by the Southeast Asian nation's biggest quake in a century. "Access to all victims is an issue ... given the conflict situation. There are a lot of security issues to access some areas across the front lines in particular," Arnaud de Baecque, resident representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Myanmar, told Reuters. One rebel group said Myanmar's ruling military was still conducting airstrikes on villages in the aftermath of the quake, and Singapore's foreign minister called for an immediate ceasefire to help relief efforts. Search goes on at collapsed building In the Thai capital Bangkok, rescuers pulled out another body from the rubble of an unfinished skyscraper that collapsed in the quake, bringing the death toll from the building collapse to 12, with a total of 19 dead across Thailand and 75 still missing at the building site. Scanning machines and sniffer dogs were deployed and Bangkok's Deputy Governor Tavida Kamolvej said rescuers were urgently working out how to access an area where signs of life had been detected, three days on from the quake. Realistic chances of survival diminish after 72 hours, she said, adding: "We have to speed up. We're not going to stop even after 72 hours." Initial tests showed that some steel samples collected from the site of the collapsed building were substandard, Thai industry ministry officials said. The government has launched an investigation into the cause of the collapse. "We will have to collect more samples and conduct more tests once we can," official Nontichai Likitaporn told a press conference. In Myanmar, state media said the death toll had reached 2,065 with more than 3,900 injured and over 270 missing and that the military government had declared a week-long mourning period from Monday. The Wall Street Journal, citing the junta, reported the death toll had reached 2,028 in Myanmar, while the opposition National Unity Government, which includes remnants of the government ousted in 2021, put the toll at 2,418 as of Monday. Chinese state media said three Chinese nationals were among the dead. Reuters could not immediately confirm the new death tolls. Media access has been restricted in the country since the junta took power. Junta chief General Min Aung Hlaing warned at the weekend that the number of fatalities could rise. Relief efforts China, India and Thailand are among Myanmar's neighbours that have sent relief materials and teams, along with aid and personnel from Malaysia, Singapore and Russia. "It doesn't matter how long we work. The most important thing is that we can bring hope to the local people," said Yue Xin, head of the China Search and Rescue Team that pulled people out of the rubble in Mandalay, Xinhua reported. The United Nations said it was rushing relief supplies to survivors in central Myanmar. "Our teams in Mandalay are joining efforts to scale up the humanitarian response despite going through the trauma themselves," said Noriko Takagi, the UN refugee agency's representative in Myanmar. The United States pledged $2 million in aid "through Myanmar-based humanitarian assistance organizations". It said in a statement that an emergency response team from USAID, which is undergoing massive cuts under the Trump administration, is deploying to Myanmar. The quake devastation has piled more misery on Myanmar, already in chaos from the civil war that intensified after the elected government of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was ousted by the military. "The earthquake has laid bare the deeper vulnerabilities facing Myanmar's people and underscored the need for sustained international attention to the broader crisis," said UN Special Envoy on Myanmar Julie Bishop, calling for access to all areas for aid groups and condemning what she said were continuing military operations. Critical infrastructure - including bridges, highways, airports and railways - across the country of 55 million is damaged, slowing humanitarian efforts while the conflict that has battered the economy, displaced over 3.5 million people and debilitated the health system, rages on. "We see devastated communities across the country in Mandalay and (the capital) Naypyidaw in are still sleeping outside, can't access their homes, so they don't have capacity to cook their meals, said the ICRC's de Baecque. "All the health structures that have been damaged... are not delivering what they were doing in terms of healthcare and have a difficulty to absorb extra needs."
Observer
01-04-2025
- Politics
- Observer
Search for quake survivors intensifies in Myanmar, Thailand
BANGKOK: Survivors were pulled out of rubble in Myanmar and signs of life were detected in the ruins of a skyscraper in Bangkok on Monday as efforts intensified to find people trapped three days after a massive earthquake in Southeast Asia that killed around 2,000. Rescuers freed four people, including a pregnant woman and a girl, from collapsed buildings in Mandalay, the city in central Myanmar near the epicentre of Friday's 7.7-magnitude earthquake, China's Xinhua news agency reported. A civil war in the Southeast Asian nation, where a military junta seized power in a coup in 2021, was complicating efforts to reach those injured and made homeless by Myanmar's biggest quake in a century. "Access to all victims is an issue... given the conflict situation. There are a lot of security issues to access some areas across the front lines in particular," Arnaud de Baecque, resident representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Myanmar, said. One rebel group said Myanmar's ruling military was still conducting air strikes on villages in the aftermath of the quake, and Singapore's foreign minister called for an immediate ceasefire to help relief efforts. In the Thai capital Bangkok, rescuers pulled out another body from the rubble of an under-construction skyscraper that collapsed in the quake, bringing the death toll from the building collapse to 12, with a total of 19 dead across Thailand and 75 still missing at the building site. Scanning machines and sniffer dogs were deployed at the site and Bangkok's Deputy Governor Tavida Kamolvej said rescuers were urgently working out how to access an area where signs of life had been detected, three days on from the quake. Realistic chances of survival diminish after 72 hours, she said, adding: "We have to speed up. We're not going to stop even after 72 hours." In Myanmar, state media said at least 1,700 people have been confirmed dead as of Sunday and that the military government had declared a week-long mourning period from Monday. The Wall Street Journal, citing the junta, reported the death toll had reached 2,028 in Myanmar. Reuters could not immediately confirm the new death toll. Media access has been restricted in the country since the junta took power. Junta chief General Min Aung Hlaing warned at the weekend that the number of fatalities could rise. China, India and Thailand are among Myanmar's neighbours that have sent relief materials and teams, along with aid and personnel from Malaysia, Singapore and Russia. — Reuters
The Independent
01-04-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Signs of life detected in ruins of collapsed Bangkok skyscraper as death toll tops 2,000
The death toll from the devastating earthquake in Myanmar crossed 2,000 as signs of life were detected in the ruins of a skyscraper in Bangkok that collapsed last week. A 7.7 magnitude shallow earthquake, one of Myanmar's strongest in a century, jolted the civil war-torn Southeast Asian nation on Friday afternoon, leaving thousands of people dead, flattening roads, and destroying buildings hundreds of miles away in Thailand. Aid groups arriving in the worst-hit areas of Myanmar said there was an urgent need for shelter, food and water, while in Bangkok, rescuers pressed on searching for life under the rubble of a collapsed skyscraper. The death toll in Myanmar reached 2,065, with more than 3,900 injured and at least 270 missing, according to the state media. The military has declared a week-long mourning period from Monday, while a minute of silence will be held across the embattled nation on Tuesday. The true scale of devastation in Myanmar was not known due to limited information emerging from the nation, which was already battling a conflict between the junta and the armed ethnic rebel forces since the military wrested power from the elected government in 2021. Relief efforts are further hampered by power outages, fuel shortages and spotty communications. A lack of heavy machinery has slowed search-and-rescue operations, forcing many to search for survivors by hand in daily temperatures above 40C. Rescue workers in Mandalay, near the epicentre, said they were still searching for about 150 of the dead monks. Hundreds of people, for a fourth night, slept outside their buildings and were desperately trying to organise their efforts to dig bodies out of the rubble. "People went back inside the building in the day time but still not dare to sleep at night," the resident told Reuters. "People are still sleeping outside and started getting sick ... as the ground has been hit by sun the whole day and so it's hot." Arnaud de Baecque, the resident representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Myanmar, said access to all victims have been an issue given the ongoing conflict. "There are a lot of security issues to access some areas across the front lines in particular." The Red Cross said hospitals were overwhelmed with trauma cases and patients were being treated on beds outside due to fears of buildings collapsing. More than 10,000 buildings completely collapsed or severely damaged in central and northwest Myanmar, the UN humanitarian agency said. One preschool classroom building collapsed in Mandalay district, killing 50 children and two teachers, it said. "The situation is so dire that it's hard to express what is happening," Aung Myint Hussein, chief administrator of Mandalay's Sajja North mosque, told AFP. Some 700 Muslim worshipers attending Friday prayers were killed when mosques collapsed, according to Tun Kyi, a member of the steering committee of the Spring Revolution Myanmar Muslim Network. He said some 60 mosques were damaged or destroyed. In the city of Sagaing, about 80 per cent of the buildings have collapsed, said Aung Min Naing, the programme director of the Future Youth Development Organisation. "No restaurants are opening, and no food's available — even dry food — nor any food shops are open." In Bangkok, rescuers were still scouring the ruins of an unfinished skyscraper but were aware that as nearly four days had passed since the quake. At least 13 deaths have been confirmed at the building site, with 74 people still missing, as Thailand's national death toll from the quake stands at 20. Initial tests showed that some steel samples collected from the site of the collapsed building were substandard, Thai industry ministry officials said. Scanning machines and sniffer dogs were deployed at the site of the building collapse with realistic chances of survival diminishing after 72 hours. "We have to speed up. We're not going to stop even after 72 hours," said Bangkok's deputy governor Tavida Kamolvej. Mana Nimitmongkol, president of the Anti-Corruption Organisation of Thailand, said it had informed the audit office about its concerns regarding the project. The government had threatened to cancel the project in January due to delays, he told Reuters. Construction of the building began in 2020 and is being carried out by a joint venture between Italian Thai Development PCL and China Railway Number 10 (Thailand) Ltd, a local unit of China's state-owned China Railway Group. The tower was originally slated for completion by 2026 but was behind schedule. The deputy auditor general, Sutthipong Boonnithi, told reporters on Saturday that construction was only "30 per cent completed" before it collapsed. Thai prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra ordered government agencies on Saturday to investigate the root cause of the building collapse within one week. The UN's Myanmar country team called for unimpeded access for aid teams. "Even before this earthquake, nearly 20 million people in Myanmar were in need of humanitarian assistance," said Marcoluigi Corsi, the UN resident and humanitarian coordinator. India, China and Russia in recent days have sent teams of responders to Myanmar while the US said it has also dispatched a group of experts. On Monday, an Indian team jackhammered through slabs of fallen concrete at one site in Mandalay. The EU, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and others have announced millions of dollars in aid.
Japan Times
01-04-2025
- Politics
- Japan Times
Signs of life detected in quake-hit Bangkok skyscraper as overall death toll tops 2,000
Signs of life were detected in the ruins of a skyscraper in Bangkok on Monday as efforts intensified to find people trapped there three days after a massive earthquake in Southeast Asia that has killed at least 2,000. Scanning machines and sniffer dogs were deployed at the unfinished skyscraper and Bangkok's Deputy Gov. Tavida Kamolvej said rescuers were urgently working out how to access an area where signs of life had been detected, three days on from the quake. Realistic chances of survival diminish after 72 hours, she said, adding: "We have to speed up. We're not going to stop even after 72 hours." In central Myanmar, rescuers freed four people, including a pregnant woman and a girl, from collapsed buildings in the city of Mandalay near the epicenter of Friday's 7.7-magnitude earthquake, China's Xinhua news agency reported. Chinese rescue workers in red helmets carried one survivor, wrapped in a metallic thermal blanket, through heaps of shattered concrete and twisted metal at an apartment building in Mandalay, China's state broadcaster CCTV showed. Drone footage of the city showed a huge, multi-story building pancaked into layers of concrete, but some gilded temples were still standing. Civil war in Myanmar, where a military junta seized power in a coup in 2021, was complicating efforts to reach those injured and made homeless by the Southeast Asian nation's biggest quake in a century. "Access to all victims is an issue ... given the conflict situation. There are a lot of security issues to access some areas across the front lines in particular," said Arnaud de Baecque, resident representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Myanmar. One survivor in Mandalay said that after rescue workers pulled him out of the rubble of his restaurant, he had rented a bulldozer with his own money to try to find the body of one of his workers and make the building safe for his neighbors. One rebel group said Myanmar's ruling military was still conducting airstrikes on villages in the aftermath of the quake, and Singapore's foreign minister called for an immediate ceasefire to help relief efforts. Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra (center) arrives at a construction site, where a building collapsed in Bangkok on Friday after an earthquake. | AFP-JIJI In the Thai capital Bangkok, rescuers pulled out another body from the rubble of the unfinished skyscraper that collapsed in the quake, bringing the death toll from the building collapse to 12, with a total of 19 dead across Thailand and 75 still missing at the building site. Initial tests showed that some steel samples collected from the site of the collapsed building were substandard, Thai industry ministry officials said. The government has launched an investigation into the cause of the collapse. "We will have to collect more samples and conduct more tests once we can," official Nontichai Likitaporn told a press conference. In Myanmar, state media said the death toll had reached 2,065 with more than 3,900 injured and over 270 missing and that the military government had declared a weeklong mourning period from Monday. The Wall Street Journal, citing the junta, reported the death toll had reached 2,028 in Myanmar, while the opposition National Unity Government, which includes remnants of the government ousted in 2021, put the toll at 2,418 as of Monday. Chinese state media said three Chinese nationals were among the dead. Media access has been restricted in the country since the junta took power. Junta chief General Min Aung Hlaing warned at the weekend that the number of fatalities could rise. The opposition appealed to countries to deliver aid directly to earthquake victims, saying there was a risk the junta could divert or obstruct humanitarian assistance. "We are in a race against time to save lives," the National Unity Government said in a statement. "Any obstruction to these efforts will have devastating consequences." A spokesperson for the junta was not immediately available to comment. China, India and Thailand are among Myanmar's neighbors that have sent relief materials and teams, along with aid and personnel from Malaysia, Singapore and Russia. "It doesn't matter how long we work. The most important thing is that we can bring hope to the local people," said Yue Xin, head of the China Search and Rescue Team that pulled people out of the rubble in Mandalay, Xinhua reported. The United Nations said it was rushing relief supplies to survivors in central Myanmar. "Our teams in Mandalay are joining efforts to scale up the humanitarian response despite going through the trauma themselves," said Noriko Takagi, the U.N. refugee agency's representative in Myanmar. The United States pledged $2 million in aid "through Myanmar-based humanitarian assistance organizations". It said in a statement that an emergency response team from USAID is deploying to Myanmar. The agency is undergoing massive cuts as the two-month-old Trump administration tries to shut the agency. People queue for relief supplies after a strong earthquake near the earthquake's epicenter, in Sagaing, Myanmar, on Monday. | REUTERS The quake devastation has piled more misery on Myanmar, already in chaos from the civil war that intensified after the elected government of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was ousted by the military. "The earthquake has laid bare the deeper vulnerabilities facing Myanmar's people and underscored the need for sustained international attention to the broader crisis," said U.N. Special Envoy on Myanmar Julie Bishop, calling for access to all areas for aid groups and condemning what she said were continuing military operations. Critical infrastructure — including bridges, highways, airports and railways — across the country of 55 million is damaged, slowing humanitarian efforts while the conflict that has battered the economy, displaced over 3.5 million people and debilitated the health system, rages on. "We see devastated communities across the country in Mandalay and (the capital) Naypyidaw in particular ... People are still sleeping outside, can't access their homes, so they don't have capacity to cook their meals, said the ICRC's de Baecque. "All the health structures that have been damaged... are not delivering what they were doing in terms of healthcare and have a difficulty to absorb extra needs."
ARN News Center
31-03-2025
- Politics
- ARN News Center
Death toll tops 2,000 as search for quake survivors intensifies
Survivors were pulled out of rubble in Myanmar and signs of life were detected in the ruins of a skyscraper in Bangkok on Monday as efforts intensified to find people trapped three days after a massive earthquake in Southeast Asia that killed at least 2,000. Rescuers freed four people, including a pregnant woman and a girl, from collapsed buildings in Mandalay, the city in central Myanmar near the epicentre of Friday's 7.7-magnitude earthquake, China's Xinhua news agency reported. Chinese rescue workers in red helmets carried one survivor, wrapped in a metallic thermal blanket, through heaps of shattered concrete and twisted metal at an apartment building in Mandalay, images carried by China's state broadcaster CCTV showed. Drone footage of the city showed a huge, multi-storey building pancaked into layers of concrete, but some gilded temples were still standing. Civil war in Myanmar, where a military junta seized power in a coup in 2021, was complicating efforts to reach those injured and made homeless by the Southeast Asian nation's biggest quake in a century. "Access to all victims is an issue ... given the conflict situation. There are a lot of security issues to access some areas across the front lines in particular," Arnaud de Baecque, resident representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Myanmar, told Reuters. One rebel group said Myanmar's ruling military was still conducting airstrikes on villages in the aftermath of the quake, and Singapore's foreign minister called for an immediate ceasefire to help relief efforts. In the Thai capital Bangkok, rescuers pulled out another body from the rubble of an under-construction skyscraper that collapsed in the quake, bringing the death toll from the building collapse to 12, with a total of 19 dead across Thailand and 75 still missing at the building site. Scanning machines and sniffer dogs were deployed at the site and Bangkok's Deputy Governor Tavida Kamolvej said rescuers were urgently working out how to access an area where signs of life had been detected, three days on from the quake. Realistic chances of survival diminish after 72 hours, she said, adding: "We have to speed up. We're not going to stop even after 72 hours." In Myanmar, state media said the death toll had reached 2,065 with more than 3,900 injured and over 270 missing and that the military government had declared a week-long mourning period from Monday.
