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The massive earthquake in Myanmar has taken a terrible toll. In this Q&A, Crisis Group expert Richard Horsey discusses the urgent need for international assistance, the challenges facing aid delivery against a backdrop of civil war and the importance of a humanitarian pause in fighting.
What is happening?
A 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck central Myanmar on 28 March, causing widespread devastation and killing at least 2,700 people – a toll that is likely to rise sharply in the coming days as information from affected areas trickles in. The epicentre, at a depth of 10km, was just 16km north of Sagaing town and close to the country’s second largest city of Mandalay, which has a population of 1.6 million. It was followed by several large aftershocks, including one of 6.4 magnitude about ten minutes after the initial quake that may have compounded the damage. The main earthquake was the largest to hit Myanmar in over a century. Its impact was felt as far away as Taiwan and southern Vietnam, with damage and casualties reported in southern China and neighbouring Thailand. In Bangkok, 1,000km from the epicentre, the shock waves brought down a 30-storey building under construction; in a cruel irony, many of the workers who died as a result are thought to be migrants from Myanmar.
The full extent of damage is not yet clear, but the destruction visited on Mandalay city and surrounding areas is plain to see, including in footage of multi-storey buildings collapsing in seconds. Sagaing town has been ravaged, with 80 per cent of its buildings reportedly damaged and few survivors pulled from the rubble; though close to Mandalay on the opposite bank of the Ayeyarwady (Irrawaddy) River, the town is largely cut off because of damage to two key bridges. The capital Naypyitaw also suffered serious damage, with several senior officials and civil servants killed in their offices and many more in staff housing blocks that tumbled to the ground. The main hospitals in Mandalay and Naypyitaw were themselves damaged or destroyed, and the deluge of patients arriving with traumatic injuries from the quake had to be treated outside in stifling heat or in makeshift tents.
Even those buildings in the impact zone that appear reasonably unscathed have likely suffered structural damage and may yet fall down or need to be demolished. With minimal search-and-rescue capacity available in Myanmar, people dug through rubble with their bare hands looking for survivors. The military, which would normally be at the forefront of such efforts – but which has violently repressed dissent since the February 2021 coup and is widely reviled – was mostly missing from the picture. Rescue efforts were slow-going, and most of those trapped in the fierce summer heat had perished before they could be extricated. The dead included more than 700 Muslim worshippers, since the earthquake struck during Friday prayers and mosques were crowded at the end of Ramadan. Mandalay is renowned as one of the most important centres of Buddhism in Myanmar; venerated pagodas crumbled and hundreds of Buddhist monks died in collapsing monasteries.
Since the earthquake, many people in the impact zone have been sleeping on the streets or other open areas, either because they lost their homes or because they are afraid to return to them given structural damage or the risk of aftershocks. Public infrastructure is crippled: the electricity grid is badly affected, as are communications, roads, bridges and railway lines. Both major airports in central Myanmar – at Mandalay and Naypyitaw – have been closed due to serious structural damage, complicating aid logistics. While a comprehensive damage assessment has yet to be conducted, it is already clear that reconstruction costs will run into the tens of billions of dollars, with no plausible way to raise such sums given the regime’s difficulties in gaining access to foreign credit.
The picture outside the major urban centres is even harder to piece together. Rural parts of Sagaing region, which have been scarred by the conflict raging across Myanmar since the coup, are mostly under the control of armed resistance groups, not the regime. Getting information from these areas is even more challenging, not only because of disruptions caused by the earthquake itself, but because the military has long enforced an internet and mobile phone blackout as part of its counter-insurgency efforts. While these areas may have suffered less devastation – they have a lower population density and few high-rise buildings – they have still been badly hit. They will be among the most challenging for aid agencies to reach, given regime restrictions, a complex configuration of local administrations and control by armed resistance groups, and the persistent conflict.