Four days after a huge Earthquakes have overturned buildings through myanmarIsolated stories were still emerging on Monday from the rubble. The number of confirmed deaths has continued to increase since the disaster, reaching at least 2,056 on Monday, according to the French news agency AFP citing the military junta in power in the country.
The number of deaths should increase more, as many parts of the country have been cut. Get help from those who need it – and even assess the extent of destruction – has proven to be difficult in a country where key infrastructure has been seriously damaged and where a civil war had already raged before the magnitude 7.7 earthquake strikes on Friday. There have been significant replicas in its wake.
Occasional rescue may have helped to keep hope in life during the weekend, but they were the lucky ones.
Building after having built in the second largest city in Myanmar, Mandalay, and beyond are in the ruins. The damaged roads, the bridges and the slaughtered power lines prevented the rescue teams from reaching many communities of the poor nation which was swallowed up by the war since the junta seized the power in a coup d’etat four years ago.
Stringer / Reuters
Only a few hours after the Big Quake struck on Friday, it was reported that the junta had made air strikes in areas controlled by the rebels which were affected by the Temblor, aggravating the misery for the survivors.
In neighboring Thailand, the earthquake was strongly felt in the capital Bangkok, but only one large building collapsed. Thai authorities have ordered an investigation In this isolated collapse to determine if it could have been due to inadequate building materials, design defects or failure of the inspection process.
The junta maintained its strict controls on foreign journalists entering Myanmar but called for international aid. On Monday, China, Russia and India responded with humanitarian teams and rescue and recovery teams on the ground, as well as other regional neighbors.
President Trump said that the United States would help, but that America has long played a leading role in international aid in the event of a disaster, Trump emptied foreign aid spending in the first two months of his second term, including a virtual Abolition of the USAID agency.
The programs that would have generally been galvanized to rush into American aid could be much less able to provide assistance following the disaster that always takes place in Myanmar.