In destruction that has destroyed Myanmar, a desperate offer to rescue survivors with bare hands

Hours after a huge earthquake leveled buildings in Mandalay, Myanmar on Friday, survivors were confused through the debris using their bare hands in desperate attempts to save these still trapped.

No heavy machines to help them and with the authorities absent, resident and rescue workers in the second largest city in Southeast Asia Reuters That he was struggling to make the survivors shouting for help.

Htet Min Oo, 25, as soon as he survived when a brick wall collapsed on him, trapping half of his body. He said that his grandmother and two uncles remained under the debris of a building, which he tried in vain to clean with his hands.

“There are too many ruins, and rescue teams have not come for us,” he said, breaking on tears.

Myanmar has been in crisis since 2021, when the army seized power by an elected government, overwhelming protests and causing an unprecedented armed uprising.

Humanities say Friday’s earthquake, which measured the size of 7.7 and has killed more than 1,000 people, has come to a vulnerable time for the country, after four years of military sovereignty and civil war that has misleading the infrastructure and displaced millions.

“The strong earthquake hit the country at the worst possible time,” Sheela Matthew, Deputy Director of the Country for the World Nutrition Program, said in a statement. “Myanmar cannot afford another disaster.”

People across the country are influenced by “extensive violence” and the health system has been “decimated by conflicts, overwhelmed by houses of cholera and other diseases,” said Mohammed Riyas, Director of the International Rescue Committee.

“The additional stress of meeting those needs injured in the earthquake will cause unmatched pressure on already stretched pores,” Riyas added.

A spokesman for the Myanmar junta did not respond to commentary requests.

The Foreign Minister of the Government of National Unity, the parallel political government that oversees certain forces in favor of democracy, he said Reuters The phone will develop anti-junta troops to help with disaster efforts.

Lush

In January, the United Nations stated that the country was facing a “polygamy” characterized by economic collapse, intensive conflict, climate dangers and poverty. More than half of the country does not have access to electricity and hospitals in conflict zones are off.

More than 3.5 million people have been displaced internally and many others are led to the border in the midst of a battle between the army and a mosaic armed groups that have occupied control of the huge territory centers.

The battles continued on Friday, with military jet aircraft launching air raids and aircraft attacks shortly after the Karen earthquake, near the headquarters of one of the largest ethnic armed groups, according to the free organization of Burma.

Nyi Nyi Kyaw, a Myanmar Academician at the University of Bristol, wrote in a social position of the media that the loss of a “important part of the country’s youth), especially the young men, due to the forced recruitment” in the army, would prevent the response to the army.

“Cities and cities stand abandoned by young men who would once go to the streets and mobilized for rescue and relief efforts,” he said.

There is no correct function – let alone legal – the government in areas that are more severely affected by the earthquake, “he said.

A rescue worker trying to release 140 monks from the ruins of a trained building in Amarapura, Mandalay, said: “We cannot help because we do not have enough human resources and machinery to remove debris.”

Nevertheless, he said, “we will not stop working.”

Without help

Myanmar’s junta issued a rare call for international aid and the disaster response teams from Russia, China, Singapore and India fly on Saturday.

However, rights activists have put fears that aid would not reach people on the ground, as the regime has a history of involvement in relief in parts of the country controlled by opposition groups.

Thomas Andrews, a United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Myanmar, said in a position in X that the Army’s response to a recent cyclone and hurricane showed “his willingness to enhance the help of weapons in the middle of natural disasters”.

Reuters He said in December that the junta was intimidating help services and suppressed information on a serious food crisis that kept the country by pushing researchers not to collect hunger data.

In Mandalay, the inhabitants asked by Reuters They said they had not yet received help from military authorities.

A rescue worker said on Saturday that businesses had been borrowed to help sift the ruins. He said that they had not received anything from the military government, but refused to elaborate on the fear of punishment.

Some residents were targeting Facebook machines.

Someone wrote that members of their family were crushed under the ruins of a mosque and “we desperately want to regain their bodies”.

“We need to rent a crane to remove heavy concrete blocks. If someone has information about where we can rent one, please contact us,” they wrote.