The powerful has assaulted a very hard blow to a country that has been torn by the civil war for four years. The information provided by the Military Board in power reaches droppers and the exact number of victims continues to be uncertain, but the estimates of international experts warn that it could be very high because the tremor occurred at very shallow depth (10 kilometers) and in a densely populated region and with poor infrastructure. A projection of the United States Geological Service (USGS) estimates that the death figure could exceed 10,000. At the moment, the death of 694 people in ancient Burma and six in Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, where the authorities updated in the morning the balance, which initially had been ten, was confirmed but there are hundreds of missing. In both countries the rescue units have worked tirelessly throughout the night in search of survivors.
The Myanmar authorities have reported Saturday that the number of injured amounts to 1,670, according to state media, while the local government of Bangkok has clarified that several seriously injured people have passed the construction were given by deadly dead. They have specified that fatalities are six, and that there are 22 injured and 101 missing in three different works, including that of skyscrapers that was reduced to rubble in seconds. There were a team of 320 workers when the earthquake was recorded. The emergency brigades, which have continued their activity all night helping drones and rescue dogs, have reported that they continue to fall outbursts, which increases the difficulty of their mission and raises risks both for the safety of trapped people and for the assistance equipment.
The leader of the Myanmar Military Board, said in a televised speech on Friday night that the balance of victims and injuries will increase. “I would like to extend an open invitation to all organizations and nations willing to come to help,” he said. It is an unusual request and has not made before previous natural catastrophes. Min Aung Hlaing faces a request for arrest by the International Criminal Court and its government rarely collaborates with the international community.
According to the BBC Burmese service, the electricity and communication lines have been lost in the two main cities of Myanmar, Yangon and Mandalay, which will complicate the rescue work. An operator cited by British television ensures that “most buildings have collapsed” in Mandalay, while another declared Reuters that around a fifth of the real estate of the city have been destroyed. Mandalay, the second largest city in the country (1.5 million inhabitants), ancient capital of the kingdom of Myanmar and Buddhist religious center, is located 17.2 kilometers from the local media have reported the destruction of buildings, bridges and roads. In the official count announced at the moment by the military authorities, Mandalay data is not included.
“The image is terrifying,” said the rescuer cited by the BBC, who also described scenes in which people “are running in the street, shrieking and crying.” In addition, he confirmed that the City General Hospital is overwhelmed and that its facilities have suffered damage to the earthquake. For his part, the worker of the emergency teams who has spoken with the Reuters agency says “he had never experienced something like that.” “We receive calls from people who are trapped, but we cannot access because we do not have enough labor or machines to remove the rubble. But we will not abandon our work,” he continued.
Myanmar is one of the poorest nations of Asia and the Tatmadaw (the army), which deposed the democratic government of the Nobel Peace Prize Aung San Suu Kyi, does not control the entire territory. Many areas are governed by a mosaic of militias and opposition groups, which will probably make the arrival of humanitarian aid. This situation is also complicating the collection of reliable information.
Friday’s tremor stirred the region around 12.50 (about six in the morning in peninsular Spain). Eleven minutes later there was a replica of magnitude 6.7, the first and strongest of the 14 significant jolts that followed in the course of several hours, as it shows an interactive map of the USGS. In addition to Myanmar and Thailand, the earthquake felt in Laos, and in places as distant as Bangladés, Vietnam and the southwest of China. The USGS reports that the earthquake was caused by a sliding in a failure between the tectonic plates of India and Eurasia, the saging fault, on which Myanmar sits and that crosses from north to south the center of the Burmese territory. According to the USGS database, three earthquakes 7.7 or higher have shaken Myanmar or its surroundings in the last century
