Aid groups in the worst-hit areas of Myanmar said there was an urgent need for shelter, food and water after a quake which killed more than 2,700 people, including 50 preschoolers, but said the civil war could prevent help reaching those in need.
Chinese television reported the death toll reached 2,719 on Tuesday, with more than 4,500 injured, citing Myanmar leader Min Aung Hlaing, who said fatalities could top 3,000.
The death toll is more than 600 higher than the figure reported by Myanmar state media.
The 7.7 magnitude quake, which hit around lunchtime on Friday, was the strongest to hit the Southeast Asian country in more than a century, toppling ancient pagodas and modern buildings alike.
In neighbouring Thailand, rescuers pressed on searching for life in the rubble of a collapsed skyscraper in the capital Bangkok, but acknowledged time was against them.
In Myanmar’s Mandalay area, 50 children and two teachers were killed when their preschool collapsed, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
“In the hardest-hit areas …communities struggle to meet their basic needs, such as access to clean water and sanitation, while emergency teams work tirelessly to locate survivors and provide life-saving aid,” the UN body said in a report.
The International Rescue Committee said shelter, food, water and medical help were all needed in places such as Mandalay, near the epicentre of the quake.
“Having lived through the terror of the earthquake, people now fear aftershocks and are sleeping outside on roads or in open fields,” an IRC worker in Mandalay said in a report.
The civil war in Myanmar, where the junta seized power in a coup in 2021, has complicated efforts to reach those injured and made homeless by the Southeast Asian nation’s biggest quake in a century.
Amnesty International said the junta needed to allow aid to reach areas of the country not under its control. Rebel groups say the junta has conducted airstrikes after the quake.
“Myanmar’s military has a longstanding practice of denying aid to areas where groups who resist it are active,” Amnesty’s Myanmar researcher Joe Freeman said.
“It must immediately allow unimpeded access to all humanitarian organisations and remove administrative barriers delaying needs assessments.”
The junta’s tight control over communication networks and the damage to roads, bridges and other infrastructure caused by the quakes have intensified the challenges for aid workers.
Thai officials said a meeting of regional leaders in Bangkok later this week would go ahead as planned, although junta leader Min Aung Hlaing may attend by teleconference.
Before the quake struck, sources said the junta chief had been expected to make a rare foreign trip to attend the summit in Bangkok on April 3-4.
Hopes dim at collapsed building
In Bangkok, rescuers were still scouring the ruins of an unfinished skyscraper that collapsed for any signs of life, but aware that as four days had passed since the quake, the odds of finding survivors lengthened.
“There are about 70 bodies underneath … and we hope by some miracle one or two are still alive,” volunteer rescue leader Bin Bunluerit said at the building site.
Bangkok Deputy Governor Tavida Kamolvej said six human-shaped figures had been detected by scanners, but there was no movement or vital signs. Local and international experts were now working out how to safely reach them, she said.
Thirteen deaths have been confirmed at the building site, with 74 people still missing. 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. The government has launched an investigation into the cause of the collapse.
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