The death toll of the earthquake last week in Myanmar has now exceeded 2,000, with the United Nations health agency warning that the disaster has submerged the poorly equipped health system from the country.
An earthquake of magnitude 7.7 struck the center of Myanmar, causing general destruction in the regions of Mandalay, Naycyidaw, Sagaing, Magwe and Bago, as well as areas of the state of Shan. The Myanmar military junta announced yesterday that the number of deaths in the earthquake had reached 2,056 people. He said that 3,900 other people had been injured and announced a one-week period of mourning during which the flags will be piloted in a half-masse.
In central Myanmar, volunteer rescuers continue to dig into collapsed houses and buildings in search of possible survivors, even if the chances of recovery become slim. According to reports from the earthquake area, countless houses, schools, universities, hotels, hospitals and religious buildings have been damaged or destroyed.
In an update of the situation published yesterday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that rescue operations were faced with “important obstacles, including damaged roads, collapsed bridges, unstable communications and complexities related to civil conflict”. He also said that the disaster “overwhelmed health establishments in affected areas, which find it difficult to manage the influx of injured people.”
He added: “There is an urgent need for trauma and surgical care, blood transfusion supplies, anesthetics, essential drugs and mental health support.” In addition to this, the WHO reported that a private hospital and two public hospitals “have been completely damaged”, while 22 hospitals suffered “partial damage”.
As I noted yesterday, the full extent of the earthquake remains uncertain, given the contested political situation in a large part of the earthquake area (in particular the sagaing region) and internet closures imposed by the junta.
Lauren Ellery, assistant director of programs at the Myanmar for the International Rescue Committee, told the Associated Press that the full scale of destruction was clear. “They spoke of a city near Mandalay where 80% of the buildings were collapsed, but it was not in the news because the telecommunications were slow,” she told the news agency. Based on predictive modeling, the United States Geological Survey said that the number of disaster dead could vary between 10,000 and 100,000.
The earthquake results from a grinding of the sagaing flaw, which extends to the north-south over the entire length of the Irrawaddy river valley, a rich alluvial plain which historically contained most of the large population centers in Myanmar. While the center of Myanmar experienced many minor earthquakes over the decades, the last event of a comparable magnitude was an earthquake in March 1839.
At the Time, British Officials Recorded Widespread Catastrophic Damage, Including the Near-Total Destruction of the then Burmese Capital of inwa, which subsequently Relocated to Nearby Amarapura in 1842. During the Earthquake, Wrote Geologist Win Swe in 1981, the Banks of the Myitnge River Major Tributary of the Irrawaddy, “Back in Many places, presenting chasms of 5 to 20 feet in width, and large quantities of water and sand of black appearance have been ejected. Some of the damage from the earthquake, including the big cracks in the facade of the Mingun Pahtodawgyi, an outside Mandalay, Report, the stupa may have since suffered other damage.
According to the biologist Brian Olson, who laid an informative thread on the earthquake last week on X, the Irrawaddy valley is “filled with non -consolidated river sediments which can amplify the earthquake”. He added that on the basis of damage videos, many buildings that have collapsed seem to have been “brick, in blocks or in” flexible floor “, which are all” subjects to collapse during strong ground tremors “.
Muslim communities in Mandalay and Sagaing regions seem to have been disproportionately affected by the disaster. According to the Spring Revolution Myanmar Muslim Network, the earthquake destroyed more than 60 mosques in the two regions, Irrawaddy reported. Among them was the Shein Shein mosque, the oldest Mandalay Muslim house house, whose collapse killed around 20 worshipers.
The historic mosques of the region, some of which date back to the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, were particularly vulnerable due to years of negligence. In 2017, the United States Department of State indicated that the government had made it difficult for the Muslims of Myanmar to obtain authorization to build and repair mosques, an outgrowth of long -standing discrimination against the Muslim minority. Consequently, the historic mosques had “continued to deteriorate”.
The question of whether such repairs would have made a lot of difference, given the magnitude of the earthquake, remains uncertain, but the fact that the earthquake has also struck in the middle of Friday prayers means that Muslims are unfortunately over-represented among the victims of the earthquake. The Muslim Network of Myanmar Myanmar estimates that more than 700 Muslim worshipers have been killed, some of which remain trapped under the rubble.