* Magnitude 7.7 quake ravages Myanmar, torn by civil war
* China, Russia, India among those sending rescue teams
* USGS modelling estimates toll could exceed 10,000
BANGKOK, March 29 (Reuters) – Foreign rescue teams began
flying into Myanmar on Saturday to aid the search for survivors
from an earthquake that killed more than 1,000 people in the
impoverished Southeast Asian nation crippling critical
infrastructure amid a grinding civil war.
The death toll in Myanmar was 1,002, the military government
said on Saturday, up sharply from initial state media reports of
144 dead on Friday.
At least nine people were killed in neighbouring Thailand,
where the 7.7 magnitude quake rattled buildings and brought down
a skyscraper under construction in the capital Bangkok, trapping
30 people under debris, with 49 missing.
The U.S. Geological Service’s predictive modelling estimated
the death toll could exceed 10,000 in Myanmar and that losses
could exceed the country’s annual economic output.
The quake damaged roads, bridges and buildings in Myanmar,
according to the junta, whose top general made a rare call for
international assistance on Friday.
“Search and rescue operations are currently being carried
out in the affected areas,” the junta said in a statement on
state media on Saturday.
A Chinese rescue team arrived in Myanmar’s commercial
capital of Yangon, hundreds of kilometres from the hard-hit
cities on Mandalay and Naypyitaw, the country’s purpose-built
capital, where parts of a 1,000-bed hospital were damaged.
‘DON’T THINK THERE’S ANY HOPE’
Russia, India, Malaysia and Singapore were sending
planeloads of relief supplies and personnel to Myanmar, which
has been ravaged by a civil war after a 2021 military coup
ousted an elected civilian government.
“We will continue to monitor the developments and more aid
will follow,” said Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam
Jaishankar.
South Korea said it would provide an initial $2 million in
humanitarian aid to Myanmar through international organisations.
The United States, which has a testy relationship with the
Myanmar military and has sanctioned its officials, including
junta chief Min Aung Hlaing, has said it would provide some
assistance.
The quake, which hit around lunchtime on Friday, impacted
wide swathes of the country, from the central plains around
Mandalay to the hills of Shan, parts of which are not completely
under the junta’s control.
In Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-biggest city, residents and
rescue workers scrambled to pull people out from under collapsed
buildings, struggling with limited heavy machinery available to
remove debris.
After he was dragged out from under a wall by other
residents, Htet Min Oo, 25, said he tried to clear the rubble of
a crumpled building himself to rescue his grandmother and two
uncles – but eventually gave up.
“I don’t know if they are still alive under the debris,” he
told Reuters, breaking into tears. “After so long, I don’t think
there’s any hope.”
SEARCHING BANGKOK TOWER RUBBLE
Susan Hough, a scientist in the USGS’s Earthquake Hazards
Program, told Reuters it was difficult to predict an
earthquake’s death toll, for various reasons including timing.
When a quake strikes during the daytime, as it did in
Myanmar, “people are awake, they have their wits about them,
they are better able to respond,” she said.
In Bangkok, 1,000 km (620 miles) from the epicentre, a
rescue mission stepped up its efforts on Saturday to find
construction workers trapped under the rubble of the collapsed
33-storey tower.
Authorities used excavators, drones and search-and-rescue
dogs to try to extricate the 30 people stuck, including at least
15 still showing signs of life.
“We will do everything, we will not give up on saving lives,
we will use all resources,” Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt
said at the site.
After the city ground to a halt on Friday, hundreds spent
the night in parks, but the situation was improving on Saturday,
he said.
Waanpetch Panta sat at the site of the collapsed building
with her husband, watching the rescue operations and waiting for
news of their 18-year-old daughter, who is among the missing.
“I prayed that my daughter was among those taken to the
hospital already,” she said, “All I can do is sit and wait like
this.”
(Reporting by Bangkok Bureau, Shoon Naing, Wa Lone and Heather
Timmons; Writing by John Mair and Devjyot Ghoshal; Editing by
William Mallard)
