Nearly five days after a powerful earthquake devastated the cities of Mandalay, Naypyitaw, Sagaing and smaller communities, causing thousands of confirmed deaths, the likelihood of saving any remaining survivors from the ruins is rapidly dwindling.
“The chances of survival for those still trapped are very remote,” said a rescue worker who spoke to Myanmar Now late Tuesday.
While assessments of the impact on the affected areas are not yet complete, the highest number of casualties is expected to be in Mandalay, a densely populated city situated just miles from the epicentre of the quake. Whole sections of the city lie in ruins.
However, the impact on Sagaing, a small but culturally important city located just west of the Ayeyarwady River, opposite Mandalay, has also been significant. The full extent of the damage remains unknown, however, due to weak connectedness and delays in communication.
An official of the regional Mandalay Rescue Organisation told Myanmar Now that some rescue operations have already halted due to the prohibitive difficulty of the work in some areas, safety risks to the rescue workers, and the decreasing chances of saving any remaining survivors.
“It takes hours of hard work to extract a single body,” the official said.
Among the worst-hit sites in Mandalay are the collapsed Sky Villa Condo building, Great Wall Hotel, and U Hla Thein Monastery.
A Mandalay Region resident with first-hand knowledge of post-quake conditions in the city said there was no information on the status of some people he knew, and that they were still listed as missing and probably trapped or dead under the debris.
“Some of the rescued individuals didn’t survive after reaching the hospital. That’s why concerns are growing,” he said. “We’ve passed the 72-hour mark, but there’s still some small hope that people might survive for up to seven or even 10 days.”
There has been a flood of funeral announcements as the number of recorded casualties has continued to rise, the man said, adding that he was sad after receiving news of some of his acquaintances’ deaths.
While the teams of rescue workers have not ceased operations everywhere, they have suspended searches in especially dangerous areas where the victims’ chances of survival are slimmest.
More buildings collapsed on the night of March 31 as aftershocks struck Mandalay, and residents who left the city are hesitant to return before more information is available about risks to their safety.
The bodies of around 50 monks have been retrieved from the collapsed U Hla Thein Monastery over the past two days, and local sources said they expect more to be discovered at the site.
“When I entered the rescue site at U Hla Thein Monastery, the stench of decay was overwhelming,” one resident said. “It was so strong that even wearing three layers of masks didn’t help. The heat is making it even worse.”
At least 200 monks were also trapped inside a five-storey monastery building in Mandalay’s Maha Aungmyay Township, where they had been sitting for exams. Only around 70 managed to escape the monastery.
Fifty-five firefighters and a rescue team sent from Hong Kong have been searching the site for survivors since Monday morning, according to a statement by the Myanmar Fire Service Department.
Despite maximising their efforts, rescue teams are often unable to access the lower levels of collapsed buildings where victims are most likely to be trapped, and are limited by the scarcity of adequate technology and machines for rescue operations, according to a rescue worker.
“This is the first time we’ve dealt with a disaster like this, and we’re facing many challenges,” the rescue worker said. “The collapsed buildings are mostly high-rise structures, and we don’t have the heavy machinery or manpower we need. Extracting bodies from under the rubble is extremely difficult.”
A Chinese rescue team searching at the collapsed Sky Villa Condo building in Mandalay managed to save a pregnant woman, a five-year-old child, and a 29-year-old woman at around 5am on Monday after they had been trapped for over 60 hours.
The Chinese Embassy in Yangon praised the team in a statement, saying that it had accomplished the successful rescue by working tirelessly through the night.
The Myanmar military regime also claimed its rescue workers had saved a man from the collapsed Great Wall Hotel in Mandalay just before 2am on Monday.
There have been no further public statements about survivors from the military authorities since then.
A total of 403 people have been rescued alive and 259 bodies had been recovered in Mandalay Region as of Monday, according to the Myanmar Fire Service Department’s latest report.
There are ongoing power outages in Mandalay and Sagaing, large swathes of which have been completely devastated.
According to the latest figures released by the military, the confirmed death toll from the earthquake stands at 2,719, with more than 4,521 people injured and some 441 reported missing.
The United States Geological Survey, which measured the seismic magnitude of the March 28 earthquake at 7.7, estimated on March 29 that the likeliest final death toll would be between 10,000 and 100,000.
