Myanmar earthquake death toll nears 2,000 as rescuers search for survivors

Rescuers freed four people from collapsed buildings in Myanmar on Monday, Chinese media reported, offering some hope three days after a massive earthquake that killed around 2,000 as searchers in Myanmar and Thailand raced to find more survivors.

Among those rescued from the rubble in Mandalay in the early hours of Monday were a pregnant woman and a girl, the Xinhua news agency reported.

Mandalay is near the epicentre of the 7.7-magnitude earthquake on Friday that wreaked mass devastation in Myanmar and caused damage and deaths in neighbouring Thailand.

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 first detachment of the China Search and Rescue Team, Xinhua reported.

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In Bangkok, Thailand’s capital, emergency crews using cranes and dog sniffers on Monday continued a desperate search for 76 people believed buried under the rubble of an under-construction skyscraper that collapsed.

Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt said rescuers are not giving up despite the conventional-wisdom three-day window for finding people alive fast approaching.

“The search will continue even after 72 hours because in Turkey, people who have been trapped for a week have survived. The search has not been cancelled,” Chadchart said.

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He said machine scans of the rubble indicated there may still be people alive underneath, and dog sniffers are being dispatched to try to pinpoint their locations.

“We’ve detected weak life signs and there are many spots,” he said.

Thailand’s official death toll was at 18 on Sunday, but could shoot up without more rescues at the collapsed building site.

In Myanmar, state media said at least 1,700 people have been confirmed dead as of Sunday. The Wall Street Journal, citing the ruling military junta, reported the death toll had reached 2,028 in Myanmar. Reuters could not immediately confirm the new death toll. 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. “Time is of the essence as Myanmar needs global solidarity and support through this immense devastation.”

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 a civil war that grew out of a nationwide uprising after a 2021 military coup ousted the elected government of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

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.Critical infrastructure - including bridges, highways, airports and railways - across the country of 55 million lie 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.