🇲🇲 Death toll edges upwards

Hello friends,

A very sad update today from Myanmar’s earthquake. I haven’t gone much into Thailand’s experience on Friday, since information is readily available. Myanmar, less so, and by design too, as we know so well. 

I’m writing this Monday morning in Canberra, and the latest death tolls stand at around 1,700 dead in Myanmar while Thailand has grown to 18. The Bangkok city authority said Sunday night that dozens remain missing, so I expect this will grow. In Myanmar, I would expect it to grow dramatically but, again, I’m nervous about the flow of information. 

Thanks,

Erin Cook

There is so much brilliant reporting in hard times — something Myanmar excels at! — but I really want to highlight this one from Myanmar Now. Ostensibly, it’s about religious institutions in the city and how they’ve been affected. Ashin Wirathu was spotted by an MN reporter inspecting the damage at the New Masoeyein monastic compound, where multiple stories collapsed, leaving monks and others trapped. It’s also about Mandalay’s damaged mosques which, the Myanmar Islam Association says, is particularly bad because successive governments haven’t been particularly interested in maintenance. 

“We cannot yet remove the wreckages of the collapsed buildings since there is not enough machinery and equipment. There are people still trapped underneath,” an official from MIA told Myanmar Now.

But for me, it drives home how ordinary a day (in the junta-era, of course) it was before the earthquake hit. These religious institutions were pumping! Friday prayers at the end of Ramadan, Buddhist monks doing exams. Let alone the rest of Mandalay shopping, and hanging out and going about their day. The photos are really remarkable too. 

Myanmar Now does reporting in very dangerous conditions at the best of times. Please consider subscribing. With Radio Free Asia and Voice of America gone, we’ve got even fewer English-language news outlets and those that are left have got to survive! 

Another report from Myanmar Now underscores the scale of disaster for the city. Mandalay’s crematoriums have been overwhelmed as families and communities bring in the dead. “Yesterday, we cremated over 300 bodies. This morning, more than 200 have already been processed,” one resident of a cremation centre told the outlet yesterday. 

An MN reporter also found that families have been forced to cremate the dead outside of designated cremation centres. “At first, they were cremating one by one, but now there are so many that people have started arranging their own cremations outside the cemeteries,” the reporter said. 

Going by what Thar Nge, a resident of Sagaing, told Al Jazeera, it sounds like the official death toll will rise further throughout the week. “Now with every gust of wind, the smell of dead bodies fills the air … At this point, more bodies are being recovered than survivors,” he said. Sagaing, closest to the epicentre of the quake, was essentially cut off from nearby Mandalay after the Ava Bridge collapsed. Rescue workers are beginning to enter the city, he said. 

Thar Nge’s story is a rare one. We’ve had a lot of coverage of how Thailand, and Bangkok especially, responded over the weekend but relatively slim pickings from Myanmar itself. This is the inevitable outcome of low connectivity, exacerbated by a military junta controlling information with a tight fist. 

“Compare the coverage of the earthquake in Thailand, where tremors and damage have been extensively reported, posted and documented, to Myanmar, where we still don’t have a clear picture of the extent of the damage and loss and may not for some time,” Joe Freeman at Amnesty warned the New York Times. 

Pair tricky connectivity and communications with a tricky relationship to international aid and it’s clear the disaster isn’t just the quake itself. The military junta has, since 2021, refused international aid a few times when it was desperately needed and fears of a repeat have prompted many in Myanmar and abroad to lobby would-be donors to engage with opposition groups directly. Many of these groups, including ethnic armed organisations and the people’s defence forces, are organised and, in parts, trusted so it’s certainly a plausible proposal.

‘The regime will delay, obstruct and control aid distribution. Sagaing, a resistance stronghold, is unlikely to receive any help. The junta’s corruption and mismanagement are deeply ingrained. How can a regime waging war against its own people be trusted to deliver aid? The Myanmar military is notorious for siphoning off such assistance,’ the Irrawaddy wrote in an editorial. 

The paper’s message is clear (and widely held): ‘The world must stand with Myanmar’s people — not the war criminals in Naypyitaw.’

The DW has a great story this morning, pulling together who is pledging what and from where. Most of Asean as well as Myanmar’s massive neighbours, China and India, have pledged assistance. As has Russia, which had sent military officials to attend the 80th Armed Forces Day celebrations in Naypyitaw on Thursday and thus have had a front row seat for the crisis. 

Despite all of this, the junta has continued it’s air strike campaigns. BBC Burmese confirmed reports the junta had killed seven people in Naungcho, Shan state, just hours after the quake hit. It’s “completely outrageous and unacceptable” and “nothing short of incredible” that the military would “drop bombs when you are trying to rescue people,” UN Special Rapporteur Tom Andrews told the BBC. Too right, revolting and depraved on another level.

The National Unity Government had proposed a two-week ceasefire beginning yesterday, though I’m not sure on the status of that. I’ve also been very moved to see healthcare workers who had disengaged with state operated healthcare via the civil disobedience movement have put their hands up to come together at this time.  

Certainly more to come here in the coming days.