Myanmar has been hit by several powerful aftershocks in the aftermath of Friday’s devastating earthquake, hindering desperate rescue efforts and causing panic among those who survived the initial quake.
The 7.7 magnitude earthquake has wreaked destruction throughout central Myanmar, hitting Mandalay, Naypyidaw, and Sagaing regions, including parts of the country already devastated by the ongoing civil war, and was felt as far afield as Cambodia.
Yesterday afternoon, the Associated Press reported, a 5.1 magnitude aftershock “prompted screams” from those in the streets in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city, before frenzied rescue operations resumed.
More than 1,700 people have now been confirmed dead in Myanmar, and at least 3,400 people have been injured. Many others are still missing, and there is a high likelihood that the death toll could be significantly higher. The United States Geological Survey estimates that the death toll from the disaster could range between 10,000 and 100,000.
In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the head of Myanmar’s military junta, declared a state of emergency and made a rare appeal for international assistance.
“All military and civilian hospitals, as well as healthcare workers, must work together in a coordinated and efficient manner to ensure effective medical response,” he said, according to the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar. He also instructed officials “to expedite the search and recovery of individuals trapped in collapsed buildings, conduct search and rescue measures on priority, and reconstruct academic and health buildings as quickly as possible.”
Many foreign countries, including India, China, the United States, Russia, and most members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), have since dispatched aircraft and warships carrying relief supplies and rescue teams. These include Thailand, which is also grappling with the aftermath of the earthquake. (At least 18 people are reported to have died in Thailand. Again, the final death toll could be a lot higher.)
However, the rescue operations have reportedly suffered from a lack of support from the junta authority and a significant shortfall in resources. According to a Reuters report published Saturday, survivors in Mandalay, where entire quarters have been reduced to rubble, “scrambled through the debris using their bare hands in desperate attempts to save those still trapped.” The news agency quoted residents as saying that they had not yet received any assistance from the military administration.
The AP reported similarly that the search for survivors “has been primarily conducted by the local residents without the aid of heavy equipment, moving rubble by hand and with shovels in 41-degree Celsius (106 Fahrenheit) heat, with only the occasional tracked excavator to be seen.”
Rescue and humanitarian efforts have been confounded by Myanmar’s ongoing civil war, which pits the military junta against a loose alignment of ethnic armed groups and People’s Defense Force (PDF) militias. According to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)’s latest humanitarian update, released on the day of the earthquake, more than 3.5 million people have already been displaced in Myanmar. OCHA said yesterday that the disaster “will only intensify already severe needs.” Sagaing, the epicenter of the earthquake, was also a hotbed of resistance activities, and is home to more than 1 million displaced people.
Amnesty International said that the disaster “could not come at a worse time for Myanmar.” An initial report on earthquake relief efforts issued on Saturday by OCHA warned that “severe shortage of medical supplies is hampering response efforts.” Mohammed Riyas, Myanmar director for the International Rescue Committee, said that the health system has “been decimated by conflict, overwhelmed by outbreaks of cholera and other diseases,” according to Reuters.
During the course of the conflict, the junta has also blocked internet and social media access in many parts of the country, in order to hamper resistance communications. It also maintains a near-monopoly on the media, and junta spokesperson has since announced that foreign journalists won’t be allowed to enter the country for the time being due to the military’s “safety measures.”
All of this makes it hard to know the full impacts of the earthquake in remote regions, and to assign humanitarian resources accordingly. It also makes it likely that the official death toll estimates will continue to underestimate the full extent of the quake’s impact.
The opposition National Unity Government (NUG) yesterday declared a unilateral two-week ceasefire in earthquake-affected areas, but resistance groups claim that the Myanmar military is continuing to carry out attacks, with reports of air strikes in northern Shan State and Sagaing Region.
The Karen National Union, one the country’s oldest and best-equipped ethnic armed groups, issued a statement accusing the junta of “targeting civilian areas, even as the population suffers tremendously from the earthquake.” Tom Andrews, the U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar, told the BBC that it was “nothing short of incredible” that the military was continuing to “drop bombs” while the aftershocks were still being felt.
Morgan Michaels of the International Institute for Strategic Studies wrote on X that the earthquake has created an opportunity for the junta “to strike at or degrade PDFs,” but noted reports that some resistance groups had also launched operations in the aftermath of the earthquake.
For now, the full reality of the situation remains hard to gauge, given the lack of independent media reporting. Initial reports of the rescue operations have invariably been colored by the country’s high levels of political polarization, resulting in a rash of misinformation and unverified rumors.
That said, the early reports on the rescue effort seem to bear some comparison to the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, which swept across the Irrawaddy delta in May 2008. At the time, the military government was accused of prioritizing a constitutional referendum over rescue efforts, and obstructing aid and rejecting international help. The cyclone ended up killing more than 100,000 people.
In some ways, the situation now is even more complex. While Myanmar was by no means at peace in 2008 – many conflicts remained active and unresolved – the Sagaing earthquake has affected areas in an active state of conflict, in the context of a broader civil war in which two rival “governments” – the junta and the NUG – are vying for recognition.
As a result, the question of where and how humanitarian aid is delivered will unavoidably have significant political implications. Local and international rights groups have been quick to call on foreign governments to ensure that aid does not strengthen the junta’s grip on the populace.
Matthew Smith, the founder and CEO of the advocacy group Fortify Rights, posted on X that aid should be delivered “in ways that uphold rights, not regimes” and praised Timor-Leste’s President Jose Ramos-Horta for sending his condolences to the NUG rather than to “illegal coup leader Min Aung Hlaing.”
“The junta will try to pose as Myanmar’s legitimate government,” he wrote. “The intl community must not legitimize them.”
In an editorial published on Saturday, The Irrawaddy stated that “providing humanitarian assistance must not mean legitimizing the junta. The world must stand with Myanmar’s people – not the war criminals in Naypyidaw.”
This will be difficult. Some of the most devastated regions – in particular, Naypyidaw and Mandalay regions – remain predominantly under the junta’s control, and while Sagaing is hotly contested, access to the area will almost certainly require passage through junta-controlled regions of central and north-central Myanmar. (It is unlikely that the Indian government would allow aid to be delivered directly across its border to resistance-held areas.)
Whatever the full extent of its impacts, the earthquake has clearly added to the already significant burden of loss and suffering that many people in Myanmar have carried since the coup of 2021. Early reports suggest that for Min Aung Hlaing’s junta, political calculations will take precedence over humanitarian relief efforts.