Myanmar earthquake death toll jumps to over 1,600

The first announcements of aid to quake-hit Myanmar have been made, despite the Asian country being cut off by the West since a military coup in 2021.

One of Myanmar's few allies, China, has promised aid worth $13.7 million (€12.7 million) to the worst affected areas of the country. Beijing also sent an 82-person rescue team, while Hong Kong sent a 51-person team, along with nine tons of equipment.

The Philippines said Saturday it was sending medics, firefighters and soldiers on Tuesday, while South Korea promised $2 million in humanitarian assistance.

Malaysia said it would also send a team to Myanmar, adding that the regional ASEAN bloc was also "ready to assist."

An aid flight from India landed in Myanmar on Saturday, which Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said carried hygiene kits, blankets, food parcels and other essentials.

"A search and rescue team and medical team is also accompanying this flight," he added.

New Delhi has promised a further four aircraft of personnel and equipment, including a field hospital, as well as two navy ships, officials said.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said it was allocating an immediate $5 million from a Central Emergency Response Fund for "life-saving assistance."

The European Union announced €2.5 million ($2.7 million) in emergency aid. Brussels also said it had activated its Copernicus satellite service to help assess the damage caused by the quake.

The UK pledged 10 million pounds ($12.9 million, €12 million) in aid, which London said would be "geared towards food and water supplies, medicine, and shelter." Ireland, meanwhile, announced €6 million in aid.

The World Health Organization said it was mobilizing its logistics hub in Dubai to prepare trauma injury supplies and had triggered its emergency management response.

United States President Donald Trump on Friday vowed Washington would assist Myanmar, describing the quake as "terrible." But questions remain about Washington's commitment due to the gutting of USAID, the country's development agency, by the Trump administration.

The United Kingdom pledged 10 million pounds ($12.9 million, €12 million) in humanitarian aid for quake-hit Myanmar.

"This UK funding will increase support in the hardest hit areas of the earthquake and geared towards food and water supplies, medicine, and shelter," the UK Foreign Office said in a statement.

UK Development Minister Jennifer Chapman said, "UK-funded local partners are already mobilizing a humanitarian response on the ground."

Moscow has sent a rescue and medical teams to Myanmar to care for earthquake victims, Russia's Health Ministry and Emergency Ministry said.

According to Alexey Kuznetsov, the medics include specialists in infectious diseases, resuscitation and traumatology.

Separately, Russia’s Emergencies Ministry said that two planes carrying Russian rescue workers have landed in Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon.

Earlier, the ministry reported that a mission, including search and rescue teams, canine units, anaesthesiologists and psychologists, was on its way to the disaster-stricken country.

The ministry said that its teams are equipped with "endoscopes and acoustic devices for searching for people in rubble up to 4.5 meters (nearly 15 feet) deep, as well as ground-penetrating radars and thermal imagers."

DW spoke to an official from the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), who has been coordinating aid on the ground in Myanmar.

Tankred Stöbe says the situation at the moment is "terrible" and difficult, and says getting aid to quake-affected areas is especially tricky because roads have been practically destroyed.

Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, which coordinates the popular struggle against the ruling military, has announced a unilateral partial ceasefire to facilitate earthquake relief efforts.

An announcement said that its armed wing, the People’s Defense Force, will implement a two-week pause in offensive military operations starting Sunday in quake-affected areas, according to a report by the Associated Press news agency.

It said it would "collaborate with the U.N. and nongovernmental organizations to ensure security, transportation, and the establishment of temporary rescue and medical camps," in the areas it controls.

The UN said a severe lack of medical supplies was hampering response efforts following Myanmar's deadly earthquake.

"As the full scale of the disaster unfolds, urgent humanitarian assistance is needed to support those affected," the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.

This included a shortage of "trauma kits, blood bags, anaesthetics, assistive devices, essential medicines, and tents for health workers."

The agency said that damaged roads and debris were blocking humanitarian access and complicating needs assessments.

Disruptions to the telecommunications network and internet were also hindering humanitarian operations.

DW speaks to people on the ground in Bangkok following the earthquake that struck Friday. Rescue teams continue to work to pull people out of the rubble of the high-rise building that collapsed after the powerful quake.

In Mandalay, Myanmar's second-biggest city, rescue teams are racing to find people trapped under the debris.

In this photo, rescuers can be seen carrying a person who was stuck in a collapsed building. 

The scale of the job facing recovery personnel in Mandalay, which was near the quake's epicenter, is all too apparent. One resident told Reuters news agency that there "isn't manpower or equipment or vehicles" available to help save those trapped.

The Red Cross says it believes up to 90 people remain trapped at one condominium complex in Mandalay (pictured below), half of whose 12 storeys were flattened by the quake.

 

Destroyed roads and other damaged infrastructure are hampering humanitarian operations following the deadly 7.7-magnitude earthquake in Myanmar, the United Nations warned.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said severe damage to critical infrastructure is delaying efforts to get vital aid to residents in quake-hit areas.

"Initial reports indicate that Mandalay International Airport (with commercial flights cancelled until further notice), major bridges, roads, universities, hotels, historical and religious sites and public service buildings in urban and rural areas have been heavily damaged or destroyed," OCHA said.

OCHA singled out damage to a major expressway that links the capital Naypyitaw and two other major cities.

"Thousands of people are spending the nights on the streets or open spaces due to the damage and destruction to home or fearing further quakes," the UN agency added.

OCHA said its Emergency Relief Coordinator had so far allocated $5 million to support urgent response efforts.

The agency said its health partners are preparing to deploy mobile surgical and medical teams, along with field hospitals, to provide urgent life-saving care.

Britain's King Charles sent a message of condolence after the deadly earthquake in Myanmar.

In his message posted to X, Charles spoke of his and the Queen's shock and sadness following the powerful earthquake that killed more than 1,600 people in the Southeast Asian country.

Charles wrote that "My wife and I were most dreadfully shocked and saddened to learn of the devastating earthquake in Myanmar, with its tragic loss of life and appalling damage to homes, buildings and livelihoods, not to mention the destruction of sacred pagodas, monasteries and other places of worship."

"At this most difficult and heartbreaking of times, my wife and I send our deepest possible sympathy to all those who have suffered the profound tragedy of losing their loved ones, their homes and their precious livelihoods."

In Thailand, 620 miles (1000 km) from the epicenter, the quake rattled buildings and brought down a skyscraper under construction in the capital Bangkok. At least nine people are known to have died in the tragedy.

Rescue operations continue at the site of the 33-story tower's collapse, where 47 people were missing or trapped under the rubble, including workers from Myanmar. Rescuers were using excavators, drones and search-and-rescue dogs.

Thailand's Deputy Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said all possible resources had been deployed to search for survivors and to bring out bodies of the deceased.

"We always have hope," he told reporters. "We're still working around the clock."

Anek Siripanichgorn, a board member of Council of Engineers Thailand, which is helping municipal authorities, said there were reportedly up to 5,000 damaged buildings, including residential towers, damaged across the metropolis.

"We are going through hundreds of cases," he said. "If we see cases where there is potential danger, we will immediately send engineers."

An initial assessment by Myanmar's opposition National Unity Government (NUG) said at least 2,900 buildings, 30 roads and seven bridges had been damaged by the quake.

Social media footage shows videos of the moment a building several stories high collapsed onto itself in the wake of the quake in Mandalay, a city about 10 miles (16 km) away from the epicenter of the quake.

Survivors in the city dug with bare hands in an attempt to find survivors, as electricity and internet went out in parts of the country following the powerful quake that struck midday Friday at a shallow depth of six miles.

The United States Geological Service's predictive modelling estimated that Myanmar's death toll could surpass 10,000 people and that losses could exceed the country's annual economic output.

The control tower at the airport in Naypyitaw, Myanmar's purpose-built capital city, collapsed, rendering it inoperable.

"Due to significant damage, Naypyitaw and Mandalay international airports are temporarily closed," said the NUG, which includes remnants of the elected civilian government ousted by the military in a 2021 coup that triggered the civil war. 

Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke by phone with the junta chief, China's embassy in Myanmar said on Saturday. Beijing would provide $13.77 million worth of aid, including tents, blankets and emergency medical kits.

Among other countries offering support, South Korea said it would provide an initial $2 million in humanitarian aid to Myanmar through international organisations.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a 10-country bloc that includes Myanmar, said that it recognised the urgent need for humanitarian assistance.

"ASEAN stands ready to support relief and recovery efforts," the group said in a statement.

Satellite photos from Planet Labs PBC, analyzed by The Associated Press news agency, show that the earthquake toppled the air traffic control tower at Naypyitaw International Airport.

The photos taken Saturday show the tower toppled over as if sheered from its base. Debris lay scattered from the top of the tower, which controlled all air traffic in the capital of Myanmar.

It wasn't immediately clear if there had been any injuries and deaths in the collapse, though the tower is likely to have had staff inside of it at the time of the earthquake Friday.

Flights carrying rescue teams from China have landed at the airport in Yangon instead of going directly to the airports in the major stricken cities of Mandalay and Naypyitaw.

At least 1,644 people have been killed and more than 3,400 injured in Myanmar following the 7.7 magnitude earthquake that hit the country and Thailand on Friday.

At least 139 more were missing, Myanmar's junta said in a statement.  

The quake destroyed buildings, downed bridges, and buckled roads across swathes of Myanmar, with massive destruction seen in Mandalay, the country's second biggest city and home to more than 1.7 million people.

In Mandalay, AFP journalists saw rescuers pull a woman alive from the remains of one apartment block where a Red Cross official said more than 90 people could be trapped. 

Half of the 12 storeys of the Sky Villa Condominium were flattened by the quake, as Phyu Lay Khaing, 30, was brought out and carried by stretcher to be embraced by her husband and taken to hospital.

Indian aid flights landed in Myanmar on Saturday, New Delhi's Foreign Ministry said.

It followed a powerful 7.7-magnitude that caused widespread damage in India's civil war-ravaged neighbour. 

Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing issued an exceptionally rare appeal for international aid, indicating the severity with over 1,000 people having been killed and more than 2,000 others injured.

Previous military regimes in the country have shunned foreign assistance even after major natural disasters.

Indian foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said a C-130 military transport plane had been dispatched carrying hygiene kits, blankets, food parcels and other essentials.

"A search and rescue team and medical team is also accompanying this flight," he added. "We will continue to monitor the developments and more aid will follow."

Two more Indian Air Force aircraft were also to be sent on Saturday carrying "80 search and rescue specialists" and a canine squad alongside more relief material, ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said.

More aircraft carrying a field hospital and medical personnel and two Indian navy ships carrying more relief assistance material and personnel were also deployed. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he had spoken with Min Aung Hlaing of Myanmar to give his "deep condolences at the loss of lives" in the earthquake.

"As a close friend and neighbour, India stands in solidarity with the people of Myanmar in this difficult hour," he wrote on X.