Myanmar Quake Death Toll Climbs as Some Aid Starts to Arrive
Myanmar’s military government said the death toll had reached 1,644, though that number is expected to rise significantly.
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The death toll from the powerful earthquake in Myanmar has reached 1,644, the country’s authorities said on Saturday, even as rescue workers raced against time in search of survivors in the ruins of apartments buildings, monasteries and mosques.
The 7.7-magnitude temblor, which struck just outside Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city, on Friday afternoon, sent shock waves around Southeast Asia and even beyond. In Bangkok, Thailand, more than 600 miles from the quake’s epicenter, a 30-story building that was under construction collapsed. Grim vigils were being held on Saturday as rescue workers searched for survivors.
But the earthquake was particularly devastating to areas near the Sagaing Fault, which runs north-south through the center of Myanmar, destroying buildings and roads and downing power lines.
The number of dead and injured in Myanmar, a country ruled by a military junta that has restricted contact with the outside world, was expected to rise, though it may be months before the full scale of the devastation is understood. Modeling by the United States Geological Survey suggested the number of deaths was likely to surpass 10,000.
Mandalay, a city of around 1.5 million people, was hard hit. People were stocking up on fuel and food in preparation for days without power, and patients were camped outside the city’s overcrowded main hospital. The city’s streets were jammed on Saturday with ambulances heading to a hospital two hours away, where there was more room.
Volunteers rushed to Mandalay to try to help find survivors, even as hopes dimmed. Ko Thien Win, a rescue worker who rushed to the site of a destroyed apartment building in Mandalay, pleaded for skilled help and heavy machinery, such as excavators. “Yesterday we found some survivors, but today the chances are much lower,” he said.
The disaster is compounding the monumental challenges facing Myanmar’s military rulers, who overthrew an elected government in 2021, and questions are swirling about whether they will manage to stay in power. The junta has already lost ground to rebels amid a bloody civil war that left nearly 20 million of the country’s roughly 54 million people without enough food or shelter even before the quake, according to U.N. officials.
On Friday evening, junta fighters dropped bombs on a rebel-held village. There were no casualties, but residents were stunned that the military would resume attacks in the immediate wake of the disaster. “I just can’t believe they did airstrikes at the same time as the earthquake,” said Lway Yal Oo, a resident of the bombed village.
Here’s what else to know:
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Building collapse: Rescue workers in Bangkok were scouring for survivors at the site of the building collapse. Eight people were confirmed dead and scores more were thought to be buried in the rubble.
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Aid complications: The earthquake prompted an extraordinary appeal from Myanmar’s government for outside aid. Some international aid started to arrive, with China and India sending blankets, food and teams to help search for survivors. But the junta is under heavy sanctions from the United States, Britain and others, and its long isolation, internal instability and major logistical hurdles are expected to complicate the global response.
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Shock waves: The shaking was felt as far away as Bangladesh, Vietnam and southern China, where state news media said people were injured in the city of Ruili, near the Myanmar border. Myanmar is in one of the world’s most seismically active regions.
Hannah Beech contributed reporting.
A powerful earthquake that has killed more than 1,600 people in Myanmar comes as the Trump administration is dismantling the main U.S. agency for distributing foreign aid, a step that is likely to inhibit recovery efforts in the isolated Asian country.
As the 7.7-magnitude earthquake caused buildings to collapse, downed power lines and ripped up roads in the Mandalay region of Myanmar on Friday, the Trump administration was detailing final plans to effectively eliminate the aid organization, the U.S. Agency for International Development, by cutting its staff to about 15.
Already, the agency, which had about 10,000 employees before President Trump returned to office, has been defunded, and nearly all of its foreign aid contracts have been terminated. At least 7,000 staff members have been fired or put on leave. The Trump administration has been slowed in its effort to gut the agency by court battles, but an appeals court on Friday cleared the way for further cuts.
Mr. Trump said on Friday that the United States would offer aid to Myanmar, telling reporters, “We’re going to be helping.” But the initial U.S. response has been muted.
Other countries, including China and India, have begun sending food, blankets and search teams to Myanmar, where modeling by the U.S. Geological Survey suggests the number of deaths is likely to surpass 10,000. But Myanmar’s government, controlled by a junta that overthrew the country’s elected government in 2021, is under heavy sanctions from the United States, Britain and others, and its isolation is expected to complicate the global response.
In the past, the United States would “almost invariably” have sent search teams and released money to nonprofit organizations to aid survivors, said Jeremy Konyndyk, a former director of U.S.A.I.D.’s foreign disaster assistance office.
“The first 24 to 48 hours after a major disaster are the time of peak frenzy, because that’s when you’re getting the search-and-rescue teams spun up and organizing the airlifts,” Mr. Konyndyk said. “But none of that’s happening.”
Instead, on Friday, workers who remained at U.S.A.I.D. received messages informing them of their “final mission” and detailing the further elimination of jobs.
The Trump administration says it will keep a small group of essential staff members in U.S.A.I.D. under the umbrella of the State Department. A message sent to workers on Saturday asked them to indicate their “preferred status during the transition.”
After the earthquake, the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance at U.S.A.I.D. released a formal declaration of humanitarian needs in Myanmar, according to a copy of the document reviewed by The New York Times.
The declaration said that U.S.A.I.D. was “in communication with its international human partners” and that a three-person U.S. “assessment team” was prepared to travel to Myanmar.
The declaration did not appear to have been published online — U.S.A.I.D.’s website has been stripped down to a notification that staff members are on leave — and the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Saturday.
“I’d love to see them pull back the teams that they’ve fired and really mount a serious response” to the earthquake, Mr. Konyndyk said. But he added, “The fact that they fired everyone on the day this was all going on does not suggest there’s much seriousness about a real U.S. response.”
U.S. rescue teams have traditionally provided not only sophisticated equipment, but also expertise to assist local teams on search methods, Mr. Konyndyk said.
“When the donor that normally provides about 40 percent of global humanitarian financing leaves the field, no one else can really fill that gap,” he said, referring to America’s role in global relief efforts. “The absence of the U.S. here is going to mean fewer live rescues of people who could be saved. Full stop.”
David Pierson contributed reporting.
As people in Myanmar surveyed the aftermath of Friday’s earthquake, some were stunned by the military government’s decisions in the wake of the catastrophe: It had resumed attacks on its own citizens.
Myanmar is torn by civil war and its government is run by a junta, led by Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, that overthrew the country’s elected government in 2021. The war has ravaged this Southeast Asian country. About half of its territory is now in rebels’ hands, while the military has fortified its presence in the big cities.
The junta has for years been accused of committing atrocities, and had terrorized civilian areas with airstrikes, outpaced in recent months only by those rained down on Gaza. The United States, Britain and other countries have imposed heavy sanctions on the junta, although nations such as India and China have maintained ties with it.
The earthquake on Friday prompted an unusual appeal from Myanmar’s government for international assistance, and some residents hoped for a reprieve from the civil war. Instead, within hours of the earthquake, the airstrikes had restarted.
On Friday evening, in northern Shan State, which borders the Mandalay Region, junta fighter jets dropped bombs on Naung Lin village, which is held by the rebels.
“I just can’t believe they did airstrikes at the same time as the earthquake,” said Lway Yal Oo, a Naung Lin resident. “Min Aung Hlaing is creating a killing field in Myanmar.”
There were no casualties, but sorties two days before killed four people in nearby villages. And a week and half before that, 10 people sheltering in a seminary in the same township had died in aerial raids.
International aid and rescue workers began arriving in Myanmar on Saturday after the powerful earthquake forced the military junta to look outside for help. But aid agencies and governments seeking to assist will not only have to navigate destroyed roads and airports, but also a host of political obstacles.
Myanmar has been cut off by Western nations since 2021 when the military seized power in a coup and imposed a brutal crackdown. A civil war between the military government and rebel groups opposing its autocratic leadership has carved the country up into a fractured state.
The military government’s allies, including China and Russia, were some of the first to respond with aid. China dispatched a 37-member search-and-rescue team, according to the Global Times, a Communist Party tabloid. Russia quickly followed suit, sending two planes carrying 120 rescue workers, according to TASS, the state-run news agency.
India, which has managed a delicate relationship with Myanmar, sent 15 tons of relief material early on Saturday. It was also dispatching a field hospital of 118 medical specialists, two aircraft carrying teams of 80 search and rescue specialists and four naval ships of emergency assistance.
It is not clear, however, how the aid will be distributed, given both the destruction and the junta’s grip on the country. The European Union, which has issued sanctions against Myanmar’s military leaders, answered the regime’s rare call for help with a 2.5 million euro, about $2.7 million, emergency aid package. The E.U. did not respond for a request for comment on exactly where the aid would go.
The earthquake is the first major natural disaster since the Trump administration cut billions of dollars in foreign aid, further complicating the global response.
President Trump said Friday that the United States would still offer assistance, the same day his administration laid out its plans to put the U.S. Agency for International Development fully under the State Department and to reduce its staff to some 15 positions. The Associated Press cited a State Department spokeswoman as saying that U.S.A.I.D. staff members still in Myanmar would be mobilized.
Already stretched by multiple crises — including in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and more — humanitarian aid agencies now have to contend with the “closure of U.S.A.I.D. and the loss of significant amounts of money in that system,” said Richard Horsey, a senior adviser on Myanmar at the International Crisis Group.
When the earthquake struck on Friday, the International Rescue Committee said it had begun to prepare for even more displaced people than had already been forced to flee their homes by the civil war.
“In any earthquake scenario, access is always difficult,” said Ciarán Donnelly, the vice president overseeing international programs at the International Rescue Committee. “And that’s even more so the case in a conflict situation in a country with very poor infrastructure.”
Myanmar had long posed a unique set of challenges to aid groups. To navigate Myanmar’s complex political and social terrain, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has relied on a network of 6,400 volunteers who work alongside a much smaller staff, and who know how to navigate the country’s system, said Afrhill Rances, the agency’s spokeswoman for the region.
But, she said, with electricity and phone lines down, the airport shuttered and roads destroyed it was quickly becoming clear that more people and more resources would be needed.
Jenny Gross, David Pierson and Mujib Mashal contributed reporting.
Rebel forces in Myanmar’s Sagaing region, a center of resistance against the military regime, are using elephants to help clear destroyed roads, according to the National Unity Government, the shadow government in exile.
The death toll in Myanmar now stands at 1,644 and 3,408 people are injured, according to the Myanmar military. But, given the scale of the devastation, the death toll is still expected to rise significantly.
In Mandalay, near the epicenter of the quake that rocked the region, volunteer rescue workers raced against time as they combed through the ruins of apartments, monasteries and mosques to find survivors. Others struggled to come to terms with all they had lost.
Downed power lines, destroyed roads and a lack of equipment made rescue work even harder in a city already enduring a repressive military government and a civil war that is now in its fourth year.
“There are at least a hundred people still trapped inside,” said Thaw Zin, a volunteer who was sitting in front of a destroyed condominium. “We are trying our best with what we have.”
The earthquake, which struck at about 12:50 p.m. Friday local time, was only the third of such magnitude to hit the region in the past century. The extent of the catastrophe remains enormous: the Myanmar military junta declared a state of emergency in six regions. These include rebel-controlled areas where there is little internet and millions of displaced people.
Su Wai Lin managed to escape with her husband and mother-in-law when the earthquake struck, but her husband ran back into their apartment building in Mandalay to save their 90-year-old neighbor.
Then the building collapsed, killing her husband and the neighbor.
“I can’t put into words the pain I feel,” said Ms. Su Wai Lin, who is six months pregnant, weeping as she spoke at a hospital. “My child will be born without a father. We may have survived physically, but our hearts and emotions are shattered.”
On Saturday, the streets were jammed with ambulances that were heading to Pyin Oo Lwin, a town about a two-hour drive from Mandalay. The overcrowded hospitals in Mandalay were unable to accept more patients.
Tay Zar Lin was picking mangoes when the ground started shaking. He fell from the tree he was in, breaking his leg. At a hospital in Mandalay on Friday, no doctors were available, so he waited all night, in pain, and finally saw a doctor Saturday morning.
Mr. Tay Zar Lin, who got married last month, said he had just learned that his wife was still trapped inside a collapsed building that houses the tailor shop where she works.
“I don’t know if she’s alive or not,” said Mr. Tay Zar Lin, whose leg is in a cast. “I pray that yesterday morning wasn’t the last time I saw her.”
He said that if Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s ousted and imprisoned civilian leader, were in charge now, “many trapped people would have been rescued, and unnecessary deaths could have been prevented.”
There was growing anger against the military, which seized power in a coup in February 2021. Mr. Thaw Zin, the volunteer rescuer, said soldiers and police officers had turned up but did nothing to help.
“They are here hanging around with their guns,” he said. “We don’t need guns, we need helping hands and kind hearts.”
By Saturday morning, dozens of ordinary people from other cities in Myanmar had packed their cars and vans with supplies and headed into Mandalay, hoping to pitch in. Doctors from the nationwide Civil Disobedience Movement — the resistance movement against the junta — traveled from the rebel-held areas of Kayin, Tanintharyi and Lashioto to help, many of them returning to their hometown. Several international aid groups said they were rushing to the disaster sites.
“None of us are trained for earthquake rescues,” said Ko Thein Win, a volunteer rescue worker who had rushed to the site of a destroyed condominium. “Yesterday, we found some survivors, but today, the chances are much lower.”
He said they urgently needed skilled rescue workers and heavy machinery such as excavators.
Eaint Thadar Phyu, 18, an English teacher in Mandalay, said she was on the second floor of the hostel where she was staying when the earthquake struck. She was hurrying to pack up some basic items such as her identification card when an aftershock hit.
“I thought I was going to die,” she said.
Ms. Eaint Thadar Phyu said she couldn’t sleep Friday night because of a series of aftershocks. “I was scared they would turn into a huge one again.”
The scope of the death toll was still unclear, but the scale of the disaster was stark: heaps of collapsed rubble, from monasteries to condominiums, dotted the landscape.
Mandalay, with a population of about 1.5 million, is Myanmar’s second-largest city. A former royal capital, it is known as a center for Burmese culture and Buddhism, home to numerous temples, monasteries and pagodas.
On Saturday morning, shaken residents gathered at hospitals and relief centers, and contemplated all that they had lost. Red tents were set up for rescue workers to rest in 100-degree heat. Residents talked about how their home had become a ruined city. Many were still walking around in tears.
Long lines formed at gas stations as people stocked up on fuel, preparing for days without power.
Verena Hölzl contributed reporting.
India’s immediate response, in addition to the 15 tons of relief material that arrived early in the morning, includes a field hospital of 118 medical specialists (incidentally the same field hospital that had deployed to help after Turkey’s earthquake), two aircraft carrying teams of 80 search and rescue specialists and four navy ships of humanitarian and disaster response material.
The quake was especially damaging to Myanmar’s historic and religious sites. It toppled pagodas and minarets, collapsed Buddhist monasteries and mosques, and reduced centuries-old monuments popular with tourists to rubble. See the damage in photographs and videos shared by witnesses and verified by The Times.
Tay Zar Lin was picking mangoes when the ground started shaking and he fell, breaking his leg. At a hospital in Mandalay on Friday, he was told that there were no doctors available. He waited all night, in pain, until he was able to see a doctor this morning.
He said he had just discovered that his wife was still trapped inside a tailor shop where she works. “I don’t know if she’s alive or not,” he said. “I pray that yesterday morning wasn’t the last time I saw her.”
At the Wisdom Villa private high school in Mandalay, several students were believed to be trapped under the rubble of the destroyed building. Video by the AFP news agency showed how rescuers called out names repeatedly on Saturday, hoping to hear any signs of life.
Su Wai Lin managed to escape with her husband and mother-in-law when the earthquake struck, but she said her husband ran back into their apartment building in Mandalay to save their 90-year-old neighbor. Then, the building collapsed, killing her husband and the neighbor.
“I can’t put into words the pain I feel,” said Su Wai Lin, who is six months pregnant, weeping as she spoke at a hospital. “My child will be born without a father. We may have survived physically, but our hearts and emotions are shattered.”
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he had spoken to the chief of Myanmar’s military junta, Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, offering help and solidarity “with a close friend and neighbor.” India shares a long border with Myanmar, and Mr. Modi’s government has maintained a delicate balance in the relations: calling for restoration of democracy while maintaining contact with the military leadership.
Indian humanitarian aid arrived in Yangon on Saturday morning, and Modi said further assistance and search and rescue teams “are being expeditiously dispatched to the affected areas”
Richard Nee, one of tens of thousands of residents of Taiwan who migrated there from Myanmar in past decades, said he and other former residents of Mandalay were waiting for word from relatives and friends still there. He said that the wife of a friend had died, apparently when a building collapsed, but sporadic communication made getting information difficult.
Nee, an engineer who is the leader of an association of former residents of Mandalay now living in Taiwan, said that many multistory school buildings appear to have collapsed in the quake, citing word from friends there. “Many buildings were strong enough for maybe a magnitude 6 earthquake, but anything above magnitude 6, like this time, was too much. At my old school, a four-story building totally collapsed.” Most of the students at the school appeared to have escaped or been rescued, he said.
The streets of Mandalay are jammed with ambulances that are heading to Pyin Oo Lwin, a town that is about a two-hour drive from Mandalay. The hospitals in Mandalay are overcrowded and cannot accept more patients.
In Mandalay, long lines formed at gas stations as people stocked up on fuel, preparing for days without power. Residents are rationing food.
The lack of equipment, downed power lines, and destroyed roads are making rescue efforts even more challenging in a country already grappling with a four-year civil war.
Thaw Zin, a rescue worker who had rushed to the site of a destroyed apartment building in Mandalay, said: “There are at least a hundred people still trapped inside. We are trying our best with what we have.” Soldiers and police officers turned up but did not lift a finger to help with rescue efforts, Thaw Zin said.
Ko Thein Win, a rescue worker at the same site, said: “Yesterday, we found some survivors, but today the chances are much lower.” He said the workers urgently needed skilled help and heavy machinery such as excavators.
On Friday evening, hours after the earthquake hit, Myanmar military jets dropped bombs on the village of Naung Lin in northern Shan State. The village is held by rebel forces. “I just can’t believe they did airstrikes at the same time as the earthquake,” said Lway Yal Oo, a resident of Naung Lin.
At the site of the building collapse in Bangkok, rescuers are working with heavy equipment to move rubble. But they have to be careful not to harm anyone who might be trapped underneath. “It’s a very difficult task, and it’s risky work for the rescuers as well,” said Piyalux Thinkaew, a rescuer from the Ruamkatanyu Foundation, a local charity.
The dust from the devastating earthquake on Friday was still churning in Myanmar when an existential question swirled into the mix: Could this fatal clash of tectonic plates, which added yet another layer of trauma to a country already plagued by civil war, also portend the demise of Myanmar’s ruling junta?
The earthquake, known to have killed at least 1,000 and probably many more than that, struck a day after Myanmar’s military regime celebrated the country’s 80th Armed Forces Day with a parade in Naypyidaw, the capital purpose-built by a previous group of generals.
The sequence of events was hard to ignore.
Omens and rumors have long been prized in an authoritarian country with little free flow of information. When the ruling generals grabbed power four years ago, they sealed off the country and reverted to a reverence of superstition and propaganda. And earthquakes do figure into astrological almanacs that are well thumbed in Myanmar. A popular version states that an earthquake in March signals the destruction of cities, while one in July is an augury of kings and rulers deposed.
The junta’s stronghold remains in the cities, like in Mandalay, the second-largest in the country and one of the hardest hit by the earthquake. Daw Marlar Myint, 89, said this was the worst natural disaster she had ever experienced. A retired school principal, she is not waiting until July to cast her prediction.
“We have a saying that a massive earthquake like this is nature’s way of punishing a cruel and corrupt ruler,” she said. “After killing so many people, Min Aung Hlaing is now facing the judgment of nature.”
“Even the bones of those he murdered are trembling,” she added.
Since Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing overthrew Myanmar’s elected government in 2021, civil war has flared in this Southeast Asian country. The majority of territory is now in resistance hands, with the military fortified in the big cities. The junta has terrorized civilian areas with airstrikes outpaced in recent months only by those rained on Gaza.
The Myanmar rebels — an unwieldy assortment of ethnic minority militias, opposition politicians and tech-savvy youth who are honing drone warfare out of jury-rigged parts — have fought hard with little international support. The Myanmar military is bleeding soldiers, with desertion rife. Still, it is punishing jungle warfare, and both sides are desperate for an exit.
And as people in Myanmar surveyed the aftermath of the earthquake on Saturday, with screams from those trapped under the wreckage still echoing through towns, the full extent of the devastation is only beginning to take shape.
Ko Kyaw works in Singapore, part of the large diaspora of young, educated people from Myanmar who fled their country to look for better jobs overseas. He had been sending money back home to his parents, wife and two daughters, ages 4 and 7. They all died in the earthquake, when their condominium building in Mandalay crashed to the ground. Their bodies were part of a pile arranged inside a nearby hall, no space for burial yet.
For most of its post-colonial history, Myanmar, previously known as Burma, has been ruled by military dictatorships. Generations of generals have relied on fortunetellers and astrologers to guide their policy decisions. A former junta chief consulted a dwarf who spoke through her sister. (That sister continued to prognosticate after her sibling died, but her prophecies lost authenticity, according to those who initially paid a lot of money for her solo consultation sessions.)
One former spy chief collected white elephants (the real, live kind) to burnish his power. An earlier junta leader was so superstitious about the number nine that he denominated the country’s currency by it, including 45 and 90 kyat notes. And General Min Aung Hlaing, the current military chief, has consecrated temples and a giant Buddha in Naypyidaw to burnish his reputation. He has collected white elephants, too.
For the generals, perhaps the most consequential prophecy came in 2005. That is when seers determined the precise timing most auspicious for beginning a secret move of Myanmar’s capital from Yangon to an as-yet unnamed construction site in the center of the country. After consultations with fortunetellers, trucks began a convoy north to what would soon be called Naypyidaw, or the abode of kings.
Today, the new capital is defended by hills and invulnerable to attack by sea, unlike Yangon. When Cyclone Nargis slammed into the old capital and the nearby Irrawaddy Delta in 2008, leaving more than 130,000 people dead or missing, Naypyidaw was unscathed. The generals celebrated their bunkered capital, with its grand boulevards, massive ministries and penguins on ice (again, the real, live kind).
But Friday’s earthquake was not so benign to Naypyidaw. Government ministries cracked. Portraits of top leaders, including of General Min Aung Hlaing, fell to the floor. The air traffic control tower in the capital toppled, killing at least seven people, according to Myanmar state media.
In hills not too far away, rebel forces are watching. With fewer high buildings in the territory they control, the earthquake on Friday had less effect on them. But even as residents of Mandalay and other urban areas, like Sagaing and Kyaukse, dug through the rubble with their bare hands, prying out each brick to get closer to possible survivors, the Myanmar military resumed its old habits.
On Friday evening, in northern Shan State, which borders Mandalay Region, junta fighter jets dropped bombs on Naung Lin village, which is held by the rebels. There were no casualties this time, but sorties two days before killed four people in nearby villages. And a week and half before that, 10 people sheltering in a seminary in the same township died in aerial raids.
“I just can’t believe they did airstrikes at the same time as the earthquake,” said Lway Yal Oo, a Naung Lin resident. “Min Aung Hlaing is creating a killing field in Myanmar.”
In Yangon, an astrologer for a top junta official said that the top brass’s belief in star signs has not waned. If anything, they are hanging on even more to faith as their grip on the country diminishes, she said. The astrologer, who did not want her name used because of the sensitivity of speaking about her high-profile military clients, said that General Min Aung Hlaing relies heavily on Buddhist talismans to stay in power.
On Saturday morning, a military intermediary called her, the astrologer said, and requested help in protecting the junta chief’s hold on Myanmar. She advised a Buddha amulet, to be worn at all times.
But, the astrologer said, she thought the earthquake was an ominous sign for the general.
The death toll in Myanmar is now 1,002, according to the military government. Another 2,376 people are injured, it said.
Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, Myanmar’s army leader, surveyed disaster sites and visited a makeshift hospital in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, on Friday, state media showed.
The general took control of the country in 2021 in a military coup and seized control of the country’s telecommunications networks. The restrictions have made it harder to gather information from Myanmar during disasters like this.
The pile of rubble was nearly seven stories high. There was a cloud of dust. And there was punishing, 96 degrees Fahrenheit heat.
Rescue workers were desperately scouring for survivors on Saturday at the site of the high-rise building in Bangkok that collapsed after the powerful earthquake in Myanmar. Eight people were confirmed dead at the site but scores more are missing, mostly workers buried as the 33-story structure, which was under construction, caved in on itself near the city’s Chatuchak Park.
The rescue crews used several excavators to dig through the debris, dump trucks to carry it away and sprayed mists of water to improve visibility. Relatives of some of those trapped have looked on, hoping that their loved ones might be pulled out alive.
Earlier in the day there was a flicker of hope. Crews detected signs of life of 15 survivors in multiple locations, Suriyachai Rawiwan, the director of the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation, told reporters. Some were buried under 10 feet of rubble.
But there had been no updates on survivors by 3 p.m. local time, almost 24 hours after the earthquake rocked Bangkok. Those trapped were all presumed to be part of the 320-person crew of workers putting up a new building for the Thai government.
“The building came down so fast,” said Than Htike, 42, adding that he was still in shock. The father of two from Bago in Myanmar said he was on the ground floor and managed to escape, but his wife, who was helping build the elevator shaft on the 6th floor, was still missing.
Mr. Than Htike said he spent all of Friday afternoon and night at the site, hoping for a sign of life from his wife and colleagues who are still trapped under a huge pile of rubble.
“I only want my wife back,” he said, standing alongside a handful of other construction workers from Myanmar.
Like other migrant workers from Myanmar, economic hardship in their home country forced the couple to seek employment in Thailand. They had been working at construction sites in Bangkok for the past three years, earning about 400 Thai baht, roughly $10, a day.
Natthanan Kaewkaiyasit, 49, was also among those still waiting for news about their loved ones at the site. Her partner, Noy Thicha, a 53-year-old welder, was missing.
“We have to hope for miracles. I will stay here, waiting,” she said.
Aubonrat Setnawet, 44, was at the construction site when the quake hit.
“I felt everything swaying. I thought I was going to faint because everything dizzy,” she said. “Then I heard a kind of cracking sound, then I ran out with the others. I saw the building swayed before it collapsed.”
She had started working at the site earlier this month with her husband, who was missing.
She, too, said that she was hoping for a miracle.
China’s foreign aid agency said it would provide nearly $14 million in humanitarian assistance to Myanmar, Chinese state media said. The National International Development Cooperation Agency, also known as China Aid, said it would send tents, blankets, first aid kits, food, drinking water and other supplies starting on Monday.
The National Unity Government, Myanmar’s shadow government in exile, says the country urgently needs medicines, ready-to-eat meals, solar-powered lamps, temporary shelters and heavy machinery to clear debris.
South Korea will provide $2 million for earthquake victims in Myanmar. The aid will be shipped through international humanitarian agencies, the foreign ministry of South Korea said.
Malaysia will send two teams of 50 people in total to support disaster relief efforts in Myanmar, the government said.
Hong Kong will send search-and-rescue personnel to Myanmar on Saturday from various government agencies, the city’s government said in a statement.
China sent dozens of rescuers to Myanmar on Saturday to help with search efforts after the earthquake, Chinese state media said, publishing photos of the team clad in orange jackets and red helmets boarding a plane in the predawn hours.
The 37-member team will fly to Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, and travel by road to Naypyidaw, the capital. It is carrying rescue equipment, including life-detection devices and drones, according to the Global Times, a Communist Party tabloid.
Few countries have a greater stake in Myanmar’s recovery than China, which is one of the first countries to send rescue teams after the earthquake.
Beijing has stood by Myanmar’s ruling junta ever since it toppled the country’s civilian government in 2021. It has supplied weapons, including fighter jets and drones, to fight rebel groups, even in the face of mounting evidence of military atrocities.
China’s leader, Xi Jinping, sent condolences to the head of Myanmar’s military government, Min Aung Hlaing, and pledged assistance, Chinese state media reported. A day earlier, in a statement of support for the people of Myanmar, China’s foreign ministry said the two countries enjoyed a “profound ‘pauk-phaw’ friendship,” using a Burmese term for sibling.
Myanmar is a crucial node in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a global infrastructure project intended to strengthen China’s trade routes and expand its influence. One of China’s most important pieces of infrastructure is a pair of pipelines carrying oil and gas from ports in the Bay of Bengal on Myanmar’s western coast to China’s southwestern Yunnan Province.
It is unclear if those pipelines were damaged by Friday’s earthquake and its aftershocks.
