Local emergency response teams were joined by foreign relief workers in recovering bodies and continuing search and rescue operations that have continued this week despite the narrowing odds for survival as time elapsed since the quake.
The latest reports of finding and rescuing survivors occurred days after the 7.7-magnitude hit Myanmar last Friday, causing especially extensive destruction in the central cities of Mandalay and Sagaing, and in the junta’s administrative capital, Naypyitaw.
While Mandalay residents said most military personnel have not taken direct part in rescues, the Myanmar Fire Department announced on Wednesday that it had saved survivors from collapsed buildings in the city.
Firefighters said they rescued a 53-year-old man who had been trapped for 125 hours under the collapsed Golden Land Hotel in Mandalay.
Myanmar’s military regime released an updated casualty count from the earthquake on April 3, claiming there had been 3,085 confirmed deaths, 4,715 injuries and 341 people reported missing.
The junta previously declared a state of emergency in response to the earthquake, effective in Mandalay Region, Sagaing Region, Bago Region, Magway Region, northeastern Shan State, and the Naypyitaw Union Territory. After Mandalay and Sagaing, the junta’s administrative capital of Naypyitaw sustained the most extensive damage.
Six days after the earthquake, the need for aid provisions remains urgent and healthcare facilities in and near affected areas have been overwhelmed by the influx of patients.
Ruined, collapsing, and uninhabitable buildings
Rescue operations at collapsed buildings in the affected urban areas are also struggling to maintain their desired pace. Many buildings remain unstable and at risk of collapsing, and cannot yet be safely demolished, conditions that have contributed to city residents’ sense of anxiety, locals said.
“They’re currently rescuing people who are trapped, and recovering bodies from the hardest-hit areas,” said a man in his 30s living in Mandalay’s Chanayethazan Township. “But there are too many affected sites and not enough rescue teams. They’re overwhelmed.”
He added that there are collapsed buildings near the east entrance of Mahamuni Pagoda, and many others that have collapsed or are threatening to collapse in several Maha Aungmyay Township wards and in parts of downtown.
While many households avoided any fatalities, there has been severe damage to structures across wide swaths of Mandalay. Most homeowners and landlords have had to take it upon themselves or hire workers to clear the wreckage from their damaged homes and buildings.
Mandalay residents have also complained of rental prices soaring to prohibitive levels for construction and demolition machinery after the quake, causing delays in cleanup.
“Even if buildings haven’t collapsed, they should be demolished if they’re uninhabitable,” a woman living in Chanmyathazi Township said. “Clear away the rubble, then we will be able to build simple houses on our land and resume our businesses.”
“If only we did this, we could rebuild within six months. I just wish we could have effective assistance,” she added.
Little help from troops
While junta troops are stationed at checkpoints around Mandalay—near main roads, moats, the Masoyein New Monastery, U Hla Thein Hall, Myadaung Monastery, and Mahamuni Pagoda compound—they are rarely seen taking part in the high-risk rescue operations dealing with collapsed buildings, according to locals.
City residents have criticised the junta’s rescue efforts as performative, noting that most troops have only cleared bricks and helped with cleaning at the walls of the Mandalay Palace, ancient buildings, and religious structures where there was damage but no casualties or trapped people in need of rescue.
With criminals breaking into and looting buildings in residential areas, groups of men in some Mandalay neighbourhoods have formed self-defence watches and taken to patrolling at night with batons and knives.
Nearly all of Mandalay is still without electricity or easy access to potable water, except for parts of Aungmyethazan Township near the palace moat, junta administrative buildings, and the Bureau of Special Investigation.
Phone and internet service also remain cut off, except in the same township and on the eastern edge of Mandalay near Pyin Oo Lwin, the site of the military’s premier officer training academies.
Social welfare groups are distributing drinking water in Maha Aungmyay and other townships, while various charity groups are providing boxed meals, drinking water, and dry foods to severely impacted wards.
Most food shops, stores for consumer goods, and pharmacies throughout the city remain closed, while the remaining open shops, fuelling stations, and banks are overcrowded.
Across the river, the city of Sagaing in the region of the same name has suffered destruction over some 90 percent of its area, with the many Buddhist monasteries and convents on Sagaing Hill destroyed.
“As for Sagaing Hill, not a single monastery remains intact,” said a humanitarian worker from Mandalay who visited Sagaing. Everything has collapsed and been destroyed.”
Search and rescue operations are also ongoing in Naypyitaw continuing, where there has been extensive damage to government offices and civil service staff housing.
As most administrative staff are housed in high-rise buildings, many civil service employees are wary of staying in their homes after the quake. Some have returned to their hometowns, while others are renting temporary accommodation, staying in ministerial buildings under various arrangements, or living in temporary structures built by the departments employing them.
Naypyitaw-based civil servants unable to afford other options are also staying on football fields, monastery compounds, and in temporary shelters.
In Myanmar as a whole, the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs now estimates that the earthquakes have had an impact on more than 17 million people in 57 of the country’s 330 townships.
While the country deals with the earthquake disaster, resistance forces, ethnic armed groups, and the junta have announced a temporary ceasefire, but the junta has continued to conduct airstrikes and launch offensives.
