quake

'Can collapse anytime': Mandalay quake victims seek respite outdoors

BY LYNN MYAT

  • "We don't feel safe to sleep at our home," said the 71-year-old Mandalay resident.
  • After a night sprawled out on cardboard panels under hastily erected plastic tarps, hundreds of Mandalay residents awoke Tuesday to more earthquake recovery work, wondering when they can return safely to permanent shelter.
  • "We don't feel safe to sleep at our home," said the 71-year-old Mandalay resident.
After a night sprawled out on cardboard panels under hastily erected plastic tarps, hundreds of Mandalay residents awoke Tuesday to more earthquake recovery work, wondering when they can return safely to permanent shelter.
The violent 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck Friday near the city in central Myanmar, killing more than 2,000 people, with fears the toll could rise significantly.
Initial tremors destroyed many homes across the city, and persistent aftershocks have left the residents of those spared wary of spending time indoors.
"We don't dare to go back home because we are worried our neighbouring building will collapse on us," said 57-year-old grandmother Hlaing Hlaing Hmwe.
"Children want to go back because the weather is hot here," she said.
Temperatures on Tuesday in the city of more than 1.7 million people again approached 40 degrees Celsius.
Hlaing Hlaing Hmwe said they won't be able to endure it much longer, so she is considering going to a monastery in search of shelter.
"We heard monasteries collapsed too but there is another one we can go to."
Though sleeping in the open relieves one of the risk of falling buildings, Soe Tint said that basic amenities such as water, electricity and access to toilets are difficult to come by.
Still, it is preferable to the potential danger of being inside.
"We don't feel safe to sleep at our home," said the 71-year-old Mandalay resident. "So we moved to this field".
The buildings next to his home are as high as six or seven storeys, and he said they are now leaning due to the tremors.
"I even think my own heartbeat is an earthquake."

Uncollected belongings

At the U Hla Thein Buddhist examination hall, where part of the building collapsed as hundreds of monks took an exam, at least 60 uncollected book bags were piled on a table outside.
Textbooks, notebooks and passports were among the contents.
"These are the belongings of the monks who sat the exam," said one attendant, adding there was a second pile elsewhere.
Fire engines and heavy lifting vehicles were parked outside and an Indian rescue team worked on the pancaked remains of the building.
One Indian officer said there was a terrible smell coming from the building.
"We don't how many people are under the structure," he said.
A Myanmar fire official confirmed: "Many dead bodies are coming out. There can be no survivors."
Complicating recovery efforts is the country's brutal ongoing civil war, sparked in 2021 when a military junta ousted Aung San Suu Kyi's civilian government.
Since then, fighting between the military and a complex patchwork of anti-junta forces has left Myanmar's infrastructure and economy in tatters.
The country is observing a week of mourning, as announced by the junta, with a minute of silence held Tuesday at 12:51:02 (0621 GMT) -- the precise time the quake struck four days before.
In a compound on Tuesday next to Mandalay University, a Myanmar flag flew at half-mast, its yellow, green and red stripes stirred by a desultory breeze.
Traffic has picked up in the city since the quake, but one driver said it was still less than usual.
Soe Tint, who relocated to the field with his family, is eager to return to the comforts of home.
"No one knows how long it will take," he said.
burs-pfc/aph/hmn

religion

'Noble work' of Buddhist cremations after Myanmar quake

BY JOE STENSON

  • Nay Htet Lin, the head of another four-man crew who have brought in around 80 bodies since the quake, said: "On the first day of the earthquake, we helped injured people get to hospital.
  • The baby was born in the aftermath of Myanmar's earthquake and given to the flames of Buddhist funeral rites two days later, too young to have been named.
  • Nay Htet Lin, the head of another four-man crew who have brought in around 80 bodies since the quake, said: "On the first day of the earthquake, we helped injured people get to hospital.
The baby was born in the aftermath of Myanmar's earthquake and given to the flames of Buddhist funeral rites two days later, too young to have been named.
The child's pregnant mother was knocked over by the force of the quake while working in a paddy field, said grandmother Khin Myo Swe, and gave birth the following day.
The baby was brought to a hospital in Mandalay to be incubated, but died on Monday.
"We are all living in hardship," wept Khin Myo Swe as an ambulance worker gently cradled the little body before a Buddha statue decorated with flowers, then took it away to be cremated.
Three days after a 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck central Myanmar the death toll has hit 2,056, with more still buried in the remnants of ruined buildings in the nation's second city.
Since the quake hit Friday, ambulances have been bringing the remains of the dead to the crematorium in the Kyar Ni Kan neighbourhood on the outskirts of Mandalay.

'What others cannot'

Some 300 bodies have been delivered in total, more than 100 on Sunday alone, forcing them to work six hours beyond their usual closing time.
Some vehicles peel in with frenzied haste. A crew of men say they are bringing a 16-year-old female quake victim.
The bundle of cloth they deposit before the crematorium's sliding metal door is much shorter than a typical teenage girl and one man retches as they bundle back in the van.
They do not speak as they leave the crematorium lot -- eager to ferry her clothing home to bring her soul back to her family.
Nay Htet Lin, the head of another four-man crew who have brought in around 80 bodies since the quake, said: "On the first day of the earthquake, we helped injured people get to hospital.
"On the second day, we had to carry only dead bodies."

Cleansing fire

Cremation is a core tenet of the Buddhist faith, with adherents believing it frees the soul from the body and facilitates rebirth in a new life.
In some Asian cultures, those who deal with the dead are regarded as outcasts, on the margins of society.
But Nay Htet Lin told AFP it was "noble work".
"We are doing what other people cannot," he said. "We will have a good next life."
One 15-year veteran crematorium staffer had no regrets over his choice of workplace, even as he witnessed a parade of anguish.
"Everyone is coming here with their sad feelings, with their suffering," said the 43-year-old, asking for anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the media. 
"When they come here I also work for them."

Food offering

Much of the focus of rescue teams has been in urban Mandalay where apartment complexes have been flattened, a Buddhist religious complex eviscerated and hotels crumpled and twisted into ruins. 
At some disaster sites the smell of rotting bodies is unmistakable.
Khin Myo Swe's short-lived grandchild was the 39th body delivered on Monday. She said the baby's mother had not yet been told of her child's death. 
It costs less than $3 at free-market rates to cremate an adult in the diesel-fuelled facility, and half that for an infant.
"I had to lie to my daughter, telling her I left the baby in hospital," said Khin Myo Swe, 49.
"If I tell her now I'm worried the shock would kill her too. 
"I will send food as an offering to the monastery for the baby's soul."
hla-jts/slb/bfm

religion

Syrians rejoice during first Eid after Assad's fall

  • "For years, I thought I'd never see my family again or celebrate Eid with them," Hallaq said. 
  • Eid al-Fitr in Syria was charged with newfound joy this year, as thousands freely celebrated the holiday for the first time after the fall of Bashar al-Assad.
  • "For years, I thought I'd never see my family again or celebrate Eid with them," Hallaq said. 
Eid al-Fitr in Syria was charged with newfound joy this year, as thousands freely celebrated the holiday for the first time after the fall of Bashar al-Assad.
From the early morning hours, crowds of men, women and children flocked to pray at Damascus's historic Umayyad Mosque in the Old City. 
"This is the first time we truly feel the joy of Eid, after getting rid of Assad's tyrannical regime," Fatima Othman told AFP. 
Following prayer, worshippers exchanged Eid greetings while street vendors sold colourful balloons and toys to children posing for photos with their parents. 
"Our celebration is doubled after Assad's fall," said Ghassan Youssef, a resident of the capital. 
A few kilometres (miles) away, on the slopes of Mount Qasyun overlooking Damascus -- a site previously off-limits to Syrians until Assad was deposed on December 8 -- a few thousand people gathered at Unknown Soldier Square for an open-air prayer. 
Among them were members of the security forces and the army, dressed in uniform and armed. The road leading to the square was packed, according to an AFP photographer. 
Some worshippers distributed sweets to celebrate, while the three-star Syrian flag, adopted by the new authorities, waved in the air. 
Under the previous government, access to the Unknown Soldier monument was typically restricted to Assad and his close associates, who would lay wreaths there during national ceremonies. 

'Celebration of celebrations!'

The memorial, where a giant screen broadcast the Eid prayer, is near the presidential palace. 
There, interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa prayed alongside Syria's new mufti Osama al-Rifai and several cabinet ministers in the presence of a large crowd. 
He later delivered a speech emphasising the country faced "a long and arduous road to reconstruction but possesses all the resources needed to recover". 
This came two days after the formation of a new government, which faces daunting challenges in a country devastated by 14 years of civil war. 
Wael Hamamiya, who had been in Sweden since the early days of the conflict, returned to Damascus to celebrate Eid with his family.
"This is my first Eid here in nearly 15 years. I truly feel the celebration in its full meaning," he told AFP, beaming. 
"Everyone who has come is over the moon. This is the celebration of celebrations!" 
The occasion was more sombre for some Syrians, who were able to visit the graves of loved ones that had been off-limits during Assad reign, especially in former opposition strongholds.
At Al-Rawda Cafe in Damascus, 36-year-old Amer Hallaq chatted with friends after returning from exile in Berlin where he ended up after dodging compulsory military service in 2014.
"For years, I thought I'd never see my family again or celebrate Eid with them," Hallaq said. 
"The joy of liberation and victory is immense, but there's still a lot of work ahead. This is only the beginning of the road."
bur/lar/jos/ysm/it

military

Pentagon chief orders gender-neutral fitness standards for combat troops

  • On an episode of the "Shawn Ryan Show" podcast aired before his nomination to be defense secretary, Hegseth said he was opposed to women serving in combat roles, though not their presence in the armed forces as a whole.
  • US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has previously expressed opposition to women serving in combat, has ordered the military to develop gender-neutral physical fitness standards for frontline troops, a memo released Monday said.
  • On an episode of the "Shawn Ryan Show" podcast aired before his nomination to be defense secretary, Hegseth said he was opposed to women serving in combat roles, though not their presence in the armed forces as a whole.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has previously expressed opposition to women serving in combat, has ordered the military to develop gender-neutral physical fitness standards for frontline troops, a memo released Monday said.
"I am directing the Secretaries of the Military Departments to develop comprehensive plans to distinguish combat arms occupations from non-combat arms occupations," Hegseth wrote in the memo, which is dated March 30.
"All entry-level and sustained physical fitness requirements within combat arms positions must be sex-neutral, based solely on the operational demands of the occupation and the readiness needed to confront any adversary," according to the memo, which also specifies that no current standards will be lowered.
Making changes to physical fitness standards could potentially curb the recruitment of new military personnel as well as the retention of those already in the armed forces.
But having gender-neutral requirements for combat troops -- who face physically demanding tasks in the field, such as marching long distances and carrying heavy weapons and packs that are the same regardless of gender -- would ensure they all meet the same minimum standards.
On an episode of the "Shawn Ryan Show" podcast aired before his nomination to be defense secretary, Hegseth said he was opposed to women serving in combat roles, though not their presence in the armed forces as a whole.
But he sought to move away from those remarks in his Senate confirmation hearing earlier this year, telling lawmakers that "women will have access to ground combat roles... given the standards remain high."
Hegseth is a frequent critic of so-called "woke" policies -- by companies, at universities, and in the military -- that attempt to increase opportunities for ethnic and sexual minorities, and has launched a campaign against such policies as Pentagon chief.
wd/sst

entertainment

Hard-hitting drama 'Adolescence' to be shown in UK schools

BY HELEN ROWE

  • "Adolescence", which was released on March 13, follows the aftermath of the schoolgirl's fatal stabbing, revealing the dangerous influences boys are subjected to online and the secret meaning youngsters are giving to seemingly innocent emojis.
  • The Netflix drama "Adolescence", which has sparked widespread debate about the toxic and misogynistic influences young boys are exposed to online, is to be shown in UK secondary schools, officials said on Monday.
  • "Adolescence", which was released on March 13, follows the aftermath of the schoolgirl's fatal stabbing, revealing the dangerous influences boys are subjected to online and the secret meaning youngsters are giving to seemingly innocent emojis.
The Netflix drama "Adolescence", which has sparked widespread debate about the toxic and misogynistic influences young boys are exposed to online, is to be shown in UK secondary schools, officials said on Monday.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who met the creators of the show alongside charities and young people at his Downing Street office, called the move "an important initiative" which would help start conversations about the content teenagers consume online.
Starmer said he had watched the drama -- in which a 13-year-old boy stabs a girl to death after being radicalised on the internet -- with his own teenage children and that it had "hit home hard".  
The internet and social media meant "ideology" can now be "pumped directly into the minds of our children", he added.
"Adolescence", which was released on March 13, follows the aftermath of the schoolgirl's fatal stabbing, revealing the dangerous influences boys are subjected to online and the secret meaning youngsters are giving to seemingly innocent emojis.
Maria Neophytou of the UK's children's charity NSPCC said the meeting with the prime minister had been a "critical milestone".
"The online world is being polluted by harmful and misogynistic content which is having a direct impact on the development of young people's thinking and behaviours. This cannot be allowed to continue," she said.
The series has resonated with an audience increasingly disturbed by a litany of shocking knife crimes committed by young people and the misogynistic rhetoric of influencers like Andrew Tate.
Earlier this year it emerged that Axel Rudakubana, a British teenager who stabbed to death three young girls in a knife rampage last July, had viewed footage of another high-profile stabbing just before the attack.

Pressures on young people

Australia notably banned access to social media for all under-16s late last year.
"Adolescence" also highlights the "incel" (involuntary celibacy) culture of males who feel unattractive to the opposite sex and harbour a hatred of women.
Netflix's vice president of UK content Anne Mensah said the series had "helped articulate the pressures young people and parents face".
"Adolescence" had 24.3 million views in its first four days, making it Netflix's top show for the week of March 10-16, according to the entertainment industry magazine Variety.
New UK rules requiring technology firms to tackle illegal content on their platforms -- including extreme pornography and child sex abuse material -- came into force on March 17 as part of the government's Online Safety Act, but were dismissed as "timid" by critics.
Ian Russell, whose daughter Molly died aged 14 in November 2017 after viewing harmful material on social media, said the approach had been dominated by media regulator Ofcom's "fear of legal challenge and their eagerness to placate the tech companies".
"Worried parents across the country are dismayed by yet more half measures," he added.
"Adolescence" writer Jack Thorne said he hoped a solution could be found to the issues raised by the series.
"It's about other people ... being given the opportunity to have conversations they haven't had before and that they should have had that might lead to policy change and things being made better for our young people," he told Sky News after the meeting.
har/jkb/sbk

quake

Fear of aftershocks in Myanmar forces patients into hospital car park

  • Fear of aftershocks is widespread across the city, with many people sleeping out in the streets since the quake, either unable to return home or too nervous to do so.
  • Hundreds of patients, including babies, the elderly and Buddhist monks, lie on gurneys in a hospital car park in the sweltering heat of Mandalay, a city still living in fear of aftershocks three days after a deadly quake struck Myanmar.
  • Fear of aftershocks is widespread across the city, with many people sleeping out in the streets since the quake, either unable to return home or too nervous to do so.
Hundreds of patients, including babies, the elderly and Buddhist monks, lie on gurneys in a hospital car park in the sweltering heat of Mandalay, a city still living in fear of aftershocks three days after a deadly quake struck Myanmar.
Mandalay General Hospital -- the city's main medical facility -- has around 1,000 beds but despite high heat and humidity, most patients are being treated outside in the wake of the massive earthquake that killed more than 2,000 people in Myanmar and neighbouring Thailand.
Friday's 7.7-magnitude quake was followed by repeated aftershocks that rattled Mandalay, Myanmar's second-largest city, over the weekend, and patients are being kept outside in case more tremors cause damage inside.
"This is a very, very imperfect condition for everyone," one medic, who asked to remain anonymous, told AFP. 
"We're trying to do what we can here," he added. "We are trying our best."
As temperatures soared to 39 degrees Celsius (102 degrees Fahrenheit), patients sheltered under a thin tarpaulin rigged up to protect them from the fierce tropical sun.
Relatives took the hands of their loved ones, trying to comfort them, or wafted them with bamboo fans.
Small children with scrapes cried amid the miserable conditions, while an injured monk lay on a gurney, hooked up to a drip.
It is not only the patients that are suffering. Medics sat cross-legged on the ground, trying to recuperate during breaks in their exhausting shifts. 
Although the hospital building itself has not been visibly affected, only a handful of patients who need intensive care, and the doctors who look after them, remain inside. 
The rest crammed themselves under the tarpaulin, or a shelter close by with a corrugated iron roof surrounded by motorbikes.
Fear of aftershocks is widespread across the city, with many people sleeping out in the streets since the quake, either unable to return home or too nervous to do so.
Some have tents but many, including young children, have simply bedded down on blankets in the middle of the roads, trying to keep as far from buildings as possible for fear of falling masonry.
The tempo and urgency of rescue efforts wound down Monday in Mandalay, one of the cities worst hit by the quake, as hopes faded of finding more survivors in the rubble of ruined buildings. 
Nearly 300 people remained missing across the country.
bur-aph/pdw/sco

media

Probe accuses ex J-pop star Nakai of sexual assault

  • The panel's 300-page report also said that Fuji TV's handling of the case appeared to be in favour of the superstar and amounted to secondary harassement of the employee.
  • An independent panel investigating allegations against an J-pop megastar-turned-TV host accused him on Monday of sexual violence against a Fuji Televsision employee, saying the company's handling of the matter amounted to harassment of the employee.
  • The panel's 300-page report also said that Fuji TV's handling of the case appeared to be in favour of the superstar and amounted to secondary harassement of the employee.
An independent panel investigating allegations against an J-pop megastar-turned-TV host accused him on Monday of sexual violence against a Fuji Televsision employee, saying the company's handling of the matter amounted to harassment of the employee.
A leading Japanese tabloid magazine reported in December that Fuji TV's celebrity presenter Masahiro Nakai had performed a sexual act without a woman's consent.
The accusations led to Nakai being dropped from his shows on multiple networks as well as a mass exit of advertisers from Fuji TV and the resignation of the private channel's bosses.
No legal charges have been brought against Nakai, but an independent probe commissioned by Fuji TV to discern what happened reported its findings on Monday.
"We concluded that the woman was sexually assaulted by Nakai," lawyer Akira Takeuchi, who heads the panel, told reporters.
"We also think what happened was not a private matter between two people, but an extension of work," Takeuchi added.
The 52-year-old Nakai, who was interviewed during the probe, reportedly paid the woman 90 million yen ($570,000) over the incident in 2023, and the pair signed a non-disclosure agreement.
Nakai -- a former member of the boy band SMAP, which swept charts across Asia in the 1990s and 2000s -- announced his retirement from showbusiness in late January.
"I alone am responsible for everything" and "sincerely apologise", he said at the time.
He had previously issued a statement saying some of what had been reported was "different from the facts".
The panel's 300-page report also said that Fuji TV's handling of the case appeared to be in favour of the superstar and amounted to secondary harassement of the employee.
The woman left the company last year after being temporarily hospitalised, the report said.
It criticised what it described as the practice of Fuji TV to organise social gatherings to which people are invited based on their gender, age and appearance -- namely young female presenters and staff.
"We sincerely apologise to the victim women for the distress they have experienced as a result of the company's inadequate relief measures," President Kenji Shimizu told a news conference on Monday after the probe results.
Shimizu also noted that the woman's "supervisors, from the director to the then president, did not regard it as a human rights issue".
Takeuchi said "Fuji TV didn't learn from two incidents" -- the suicide of a participant from the "Terrace House" reality TV show, and multiple accusations of sexual assault levied at the late founder of the boy band management empire Johnny & Associates.
Johnny & Associates, which has since changed its name, admitted in 2023 that its late founder Johnny Kitagawa had sexually assaulted teenage boys and young men for decades.
nf/kaf/dhw

nature

Tourists and locals enjoy 'ephemeral' Tokyo cherry blossoms

  • "After enduring the cold winter, the cherry blossoms bloom and it makes you feel like you're motivated to head towards summer," she told AFP. Nurse Nanami Kobayashi, 31, said the peak of the blossom season left her without words.
  • Tourists and Japanese locals marvelled at Tokyo's cherry trees on Monday at the peak of the annual blossom season that traditionally represents fresh starts but also life's fleeting impermanence.
  • "After enduring the cold winter, the cherry blossoms bloom and it makes you feel like you're motivated to head towards summer," she told AFP. Nurse Nanami Kobayashi, 31, said the peak of the blossom season left her without words.
Tourists and Japanese locals marvelled at Tokyo's cherry trees on Monday at the peak of the annual blossom season that traditionally represents fresh starts but also life's fleeting impermanence.
Crowds flocked to the city's top locations to take photos and hold picnics under the elegant dark branches bursting with pink and white flowers, known as "sakura" in Japanese.
"Honestly it feels pretty amazing to be here. It's honestly better than we expected. And it only comes around every once in a while and only for a short span of time," Christian Sioting, a tourist from the Philippines, told AFP.
"It's an ephemeral experience and we're pretty happy that we got to be here and to witness it in full bloom too."
The Japanese Meteorological Agency (JMA) on Sunday declared the country's most common and popular "somei yoshino" variety of cherry tree in full bloom in Tokyo.
Although this year's blooming dates are around the average, the JMA says climate change and the urban heat-island effect are causing sakura to flower approximately 1.2 days earlier every 10 years.
"Seeing photos is another thing, but being here, (to) really see the sakura in your eyes... it's really amazing," said Ralf Ng from Hong Kong.
A weak yen is attracting more visitors than ever to Japan, with national tourism figures released in January showing a record of about 36.8 million arrivals last year.
Tokyo resident Kayoko Yoshihara, 69, organises annual flower-viewing picnics with her friends, including one held last week as the cherry trees began to bloom.
"After enduring the cold winter, the cherry blossoms bloom and it makes you feel like you're motivated to head towards summer," she told AFP.
Nurse Nanami Kobayashi, 31, said the peak of the blossom season left her without words.
"When the trees are at full bloom, it's so beautiful that you just become speechless," she said.
ap-oh-kaf/sco

earthquake

Tears in Taiwan for relatives hit by Myanmar quake

BY JOY CHIANG

  • Yang, 76, has lived in Taiwan for more than half her life and has a daughter-in-law in the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, which was devastated by Friday's massive earthquake.
  • As images of destroyed buildings in earthquake-hit Myanmar flashed across her television screen in Taiwan, Yang Bi-ying could only weep for her family there.
  • Yang, 76, has lived in Taiwan for more than half her life and has a daughter-in-law in the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, which was devastated by Friday's massive earthquake.
As images of destroyed buildings in earthquake-hit Myanmar flashed across her television screen in Taiwan, Yang Bi-ying could only weep for her family there.
Yang, 76, has lived in Taiwan for more than half her life and has a daughter-in-law in the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, which was devastated by Friday's massive earthquake.
At least 1,700 people have been killed in Myanmar and neighbouring Thailand, and hopes of finding more survivors are fading fast.
Yang said her daughter-in-law was safe and other relatives in Yangon were unaffected by the 7.7-magnitude earthquake and its aftershocks.
"I could only cry. There was nothing else, just tears," the grandmother told AFP at an eatery in a Sino-Burmese neighbourhood near the capital Taipei.
"Every family has been worried, especially for those buried under the rubble. What could be done? Nothing. It's all in the hands of fate."
Three days after the quake struck, many in Taiwan's Sino-Burmese community still feared for their loved ones.
"Several buildings near my family's home collapsed, many people died," said eatery owner Yeh Mei-chin, 48, showing AFP a video of the damage on her smartphone.
It took hours before Yeh was able to reach her mother and sisters in Mandalay on Friday. They were safe, but too scared to go home.
"I asked them where they would sleep that night and they said they were still looking for a place but hadn't found one yet," Yeh said.
People in Taiwan have been using social media platforms, including Line and WeChat, to contact family in Myanmar and monitor the situation. 
But internet connection has been intermittent.
"On a lucky day, we may be able to get through a few times," Lee Pei, 66, chairman of the Myanmar Overseas Chinese Association, told AFP.
"Usually, we can only leave messages as voice calls rarely go through. If we do manage to connect, the signal deteriorates after a few words."

Waiting for friends online

The Myanmar community in Taiwan dates back to the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949. 
Many members of Chiang Kai-shek's defeated Kuomintang nationalist forces fled across the border to Myanmar and later went to Taiwan. 
Over the decades, students and people fleeing anti-Chinese sentiment as well as economic and political turmoil in Myanmar have followed.  
Pei estimated Taiwan's Sino-Burmese population at 160,000 and said 10 percent were originally from Mandalay.
University student Aung Kyaw Zaw has been following developments on Facebook where he has seen reports that in Sagaing city, near the quake's epicentre, there was a "stench... like the smell of decaying bodies".
The 24-year-old said he had exchanged messages with some friends in quake-hit areas, but "some of them still haven't come online".
There were also concerns that donations sent to Myanmar would not reach the people who need it. 
"The junta only cares about fighting wars or other things, but they don't really do much to help the people," said university student Yi Chint, 24.
"I think very little of it would actually go to the people."
joy/amj/jfx

quake

Prayers and tears for Eid in quake-hit Mandalay

BY SEBASTIEN BERGER

  • The Muslims of Mandalay gathered for a sombre first prayer of the Eid al-Fitr festival, marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, three days after a devastating 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck during Friday prayers.
  • Hundreds of grieving Muslims gathered for Eid prayers in the street in Mandalay on Monday, the death and destruction of Myanmar's huge earthquake casting a pall of anguish over the occasion.
  • The Muslims of Mandalay gathered for a sombre first prayer of the Eid al-Fitr festival, marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, three days after a devastating 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck during Friday prayers.
Hundreds of grieving Muslims gathered for Eid prayers in the street in Mandalay on Monday, the death and destruction of Myanmar's huge earthquake casting a pall of anguish over the occasion.
The watching women were the first to weep. A tear, a sniffle, a cry. The emotion spread among hundreds of men lined up in the street outside two mosques where 20 of their fellow believers died.
Sobs and sighs haunted the air in the gentle morning light. Finally the imam's voice broke as he prayed for the souls of the dead. 
"May Allah grant us all peace," he intoned. "May all the brothers be free from danger."
The Muslims of Mandalay gathered for a sombre first prayer of the Eid al-Fitr festival, marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, three days after a devastating 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck during Friday prayers.
The minaret of the Sajja South mosque in the Muslim neighbourhood of Mawyagiwah crashed to the ground in the quake, killing 14 children and two adults, locals said.
Four more people were killed at the neighbouring Sajja North mosque when its tower came down.
Many of the dead were from Win Thiri Aung's family, close and extended.
"In normal times, it is full of joy when it is Eid," the 26-year-old told AFP.
"Our hearts are light. This year, we are not like that. All of our minds are with the dead children. I see their faces in my eyes. 
"We believe the souls of children and everyone we know who died have reached Paradise. We believe they were blessed deaths," she said, breaking down. 
"It is a test from Allah. It is a reminder from him that we need to turn towards him. So we need to pray more."

Terror at prayers

Outside the alley leading to the mosques, the Eid worshippers, many wearing the new clothes that are the traditional gift for the festival, lined up on plastic sheeting laid on the road, held in place by bricks. 
A plastic bucket served for ritual washing. 
"We have to pray on the road, feeling sadness and loss," said Aung Myint Hussein, chief administrator of the Sajja North mosque. 
"The situation is so dire that it's hard to express what is happening. 
"We were terrified when we saw the destruction. It feels as if our entire lives have been shattered by this series of tremors and fears."
The pattern of destruction in Myanmar's second city is variable, with some buildings utterly devastated and a few areas of concentrated damage.
Down the street from the mosques, a resident said six people were killed when a dessert shop collapsed, as well as two people in a restaurant across the road. 
But much of the city appeared unharmed, with traffic on the streets, some restaurants reopening and daytime life beginning to return to normal for many. 
That is a distant prospect for those who have lost loved ones. 
Sandar Aung's 11-year-old son Htet Myet Aung was seriously injured at Friday prayers and died that evening in hospital. 
"I am very sad, my son was very excited for Eid," the 37-year-old said tearfully. "We got new clothes that we were going to wear together. 
"We accept what Allah has planned," she said. "Allah only does what's good and what's right and we have to accept that."
slb-hla/pdw/pbt

Belgium

Beachcomber in France hunts fragments of migrant lives

BY KENAN AUGEARD

  • Did Rose, the travel plan author, ever make it to England?
  • The sand-covered notes outlining a migrant's travel plan to a better life read like an itinerary of hope: from Ethiopia to Sudan, Libya, Italy, on to France and finally, England.
  • Did Rose, the travel plan author, ever make it to England?
The sand-covered notes outlining a migrant's travel plan to a better life read like an itinerary of hope: from Ethiopia to Sudan, Libya, Italy, on to France and finally, England.
The document had travelled thousands of kilometres by the time it was picked up on a beach in Gravelines on France's North Sea coast by a Belgian who likes to scour the beach in search of interesting things to collect.
Aaron Fabrice de Kisangani, 27, who calls himself a "beachcomber" and a "citizen scientist", carefully unfolded the piece of paper that was soaked, dirty and covered in sand fleas, hoping for clues to the owner's life.
The item is one of many objects migrants leave behind when they board one of the small boats they hope will carry them to the English coast. Sometimes they lose things in the hurry, and sometimes they throw them away deliberately, to travel light.
This is how shoes, clothes, bags and documents belonging to migrants end up strewn on northern French beaches, along with things left by fishermen and visitors.
Over the past two decades, Fabrice de Kisangani has made some unusual finds, including exotic plant seeds and shark teeth. He never used to pay attention to objects left by migrants, until about a year ago.
"I started to think, why don't I take them, because otherwise they will be lost," he told AFP.
The written notes he found probably belonged to an Ethiopian woman called Rose I., at least that is the name scribbled at the top of the page.
Rose meticulously listed cities, journey times and means of transport, drawing arrows between each entry.
The itinerary starts with "A.A." for Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. Eight hundred kilometres (500 miles) and 17 hours by car later comes Metema, on the Sudanese border. "Ten minutes on foot", Rose predicted, would take her to Gallabat on the other side.

'Humanise those people again'

Then on to Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, followed by thousands of kilometres across sand, marked simply as "desert", to Tripoli, in Libya.
Next came the voyage across the sea to Italy, followed by a train journey to France. And then, at last, the final destination: "UK".
Fabrice de Kisangani found many other fragments of exile life during his morning search: a summons for a March 18 expulsion hearing for an Albanian in detention, or tickets from the Romanian capital Bucharest by plane to Paris, and then by train to Dunkerque in northern France.
These objects could help "humanise those people again", because they tell "their story", said Fabrice de Kisangani.
"I want to show the problem from another angle, as a beachcomber," he said, admitting however that he has not worked out yet what exactly to do with the objects.
But in the meantime, the finds taught him "a lot" about the migrants, "about how they travel and how fast", the beachcomber said, adding he often does research to find out more about their home countries and "why they are fleeing to the UK".
Walking back to his car, Fabrice de Kisangani saw a scene playing out in the distance that has become commonplace around here: dozens of migrants emerging from the dunes and running towards a boat waiting in the water. At first they were stopped by police but, in another attempt a few minutes later, most managed to climb aboard.
A child could be heard crying. A man, one of three members of a family who didn't make it, urged his mother to climb back off the boat, without success.
Such existential scenes, illustrating the undertaking's fragility, are never documented in the objects jettisoned on the beach. The final pieces of the puzzle remain elusive.
Did Rose, the travel plan author, ever make it to England? Did she stick to her itinerary?
On this, the notes are silent.
kau/jh/jhb

women

Iran police disperse pro-hijab protesters outside parliament

  • Officially known as the "Law on Supporting the Family through the Promotion of the Culture of Chastity and Hijab", the bill would have imposed tougher penalties on women who refuse to wear the mandatory hijab.
  • Iranian police have dispersed a weeks-long sit-in by demonstrators supporting the mandatory head covering for women, state media reported, after authorities deemed the gathering illegal. 
  • Officially known as the "Law on Supporting the Family through the Promotion of the Culture of Chastity and Hijab", the bill would have imposed tougher penalties on women who refuse to wear the mandatory hijab.
Iranian police have dispersed a weeks-long sit-in by demonstrators supporting the mandatory head covering for women, state media reported, after authorities deemed the gathering illegal. 
The demonstrators -- largely women in black full-body robes -- staged the sit-in since last month outside the parliament building in Tehran. 
Since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, women have been required to conceal their hair in public. However, increasing numbers, particularly in major cities including the capital Tehran, have pushed the boundaries by allowing the covering to slide back.
The protesters were calling for the implementation of a bill imposing tougher penalties on women who refuse to wear the covering, known as a hijab. 
Parliament approved the bill in September 2023. It triggered heated debate in the country, was not submitted to the government for final approval, and has since been shelved.
"After numerous negotiations with the relevant authorities and the protesters, they were requested to disperse and refrain from causing disruption, blocking roads, and creating traffic congestion for citizens," the judiciary's Mizan Online website said late Saturday. 
"A large number of the protesters complied with the police order and left the area but unfortunately a small number (around 30 individuals) resisted", Mizan added. 
It published a video showing an altercation between the demonstrators and security forces ordering them to leave the area.
The official IRNA news agency said the "illegal" sit-in had been in place for around 48 days.
Officially known as the "Law on Supporting the Family through the Promotion of the Culture of Chastity and Hijab", the bill would have imposed tougher penalties on women who refuse to wear the mandatory hijab.
It also required significant fines and prison sentences for those deemed to be promoting "nudity" or "indecency".
Parliament passed the bill around a year after mass demonstrations began in Iran triggered by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd. She had been arrested for allegedly violating the strict dress code for women. 
Increasing numbers of women have flouted the law since then.
Government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani in January said the bill was shelved as it "could have had serious social consequences".
rkh/mz/it

crime

Australian black market tobacco sparks firebombings, budget hole

BY DAVID WILLIAMS

  • In March, the government cut its budget forecast for tobacco tax revenue in the period to 2029 by Aus$6.9 billion.
  • Sky-high tobacco prices in Australia have created a lucrative black market, analysts say, sparking a violent "tobacco war" and syphoning away billions in potential tax revenue.
  • In March, the government cut its budget forecast for tobacco tax revenue in the period to 2029 by Aus$6.9 billion.
Sky-high tobacco prices in Australia have created a lucrative black market, analysts say, sparking a violent "tobacco war" and syphoning away billions in potential tax revenue.
Faced with a pack of 25 cigarettes costing up to Aus$50 (US$32) or more -- including Aus$1.40 in tax on each stick -- many smokers have instead turned to readily available illicit tobacco.
At the same time, authorities have cracked down on vapes, restricting legal sales to pharmacies and opening up another illegal market for people in search of affordable nicotine.
In March, the government cut its budget forecast for tobacco tax revenue in the period to 2029 by Aus$6.9 billion.
"We've got a challenge here and too many people are avoiding the excise," Treasurer Jim Chalmers conceded after revealing the figures.
He announced an extra Aus$157 million for a multi-agency force battling organised crime groups involved in the market and a string of "tobacco war" fire-bombings.
The situation was a "total disaster", said James Martin, criminology course director at Deakin University in Melbourne.
"We have taken a public health issue, smoking, and our tobacco control policies have transformed it into a multi-fronted crisis," he told AFP.
"It is a fiscal crisis, so we are losing billions and billions of dollars in tobacco tax excise but also, more concerning for me as a criminologist, it has turned into a major crime problem."
Since the start of 2023, there had been more than 220 arson attacks targeting either black-market retailers or store owners who refuse to stock illicit tobacco products, Martin said.

Extortion and intimidation

"This is really serious organised crime, extortion and intimidation of otherwise law-abiding citizens."
Alleged crime figures named in local media as big players include convicted heroin trafficker Kazem Hamad, who was deported to Iraq in 2023, and an infamous Melbourne crime family. 
Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission chief Heather Cook said criminals fighting over the "lucrative" illegal market were associated with "violence and dangerous behaviour".
"This is impacting communities," she told Melbourne's Herald Sun in February.
Law enforcement alone could not solve the problem, Martin said. 
"If we just keep making nicotine harder to get to, people are going to turn to the black market."
Australia had made two mistakes, he said: pricing legal cigarettes so high that a pack-a-day habit cost about Aus$15,000 a year and at the same time heavily restricting sales of vapes, which were predominantly sold on the black market.
"The government needs to lower the tobacco tax excise to stop the bleed to the black market, and they need to legalise consumer vaping products."
New Zealand was the only country that had successfully introduced a similar tobacco taxation policy to Australia's, Martin said.
"But they did it by legalising vaping back in 2020," he added.
"So, New Zealand used to have a higher smoking rate than we did back just four years ago. It's now substantially lower than Australia's."
Illicit cigarettes are flowing into Australia from China and the Middle East, with vapes predominantly being sourced from Shenzhen in China, the criminologist said.

'War on nicotine'

And the black market still thrives despite the Australian Border Force saying it detected huge volumes of illicit tobacco in the year to June 30, 2024 -- 1.8 billion cigarettes and more than 436 tonnes of loose leaf tobacco.
Daily tobacco smoking in Australia has fallen sharply over the past decades: from 24 percent of those aged over 14 in 1991 to 8.3 percent by 2023, according to a national household survey.
But monitoring of nicotine in Australian wastewater -- whether from cigarettes, vapes, or nicotine replacement products -- showed consumption per person had remained "relatively stable" since 2016, according to the government's health and welfare institute.
Edward Jegasothy, senior lecturer in public health at the University of Sydney, said smoking rates in Australia fell just as fast during periods of sharp price increases as they did when prices were stable.
The black market had undermined government policy by providing a cheaper alternative, he told AFP.
To address the problem, authorities would probably need to lower taxes on tobacco and strengthen law enforcement, he said.
Broader nicotine restrictions in Australia had left people with fewer less harmful alternatives to tobacco, Jegasothy said.
People switching to vapes were going to the unregulated market where concentrations of nicotine and other adulterants were unknown, he said. 
"So that's another risk that's unnecessarily there because of the black market."
The high tobacco tax policy also hit people in the lowest socioeconomic groups the hardest, Jegasothy said, both because they were spending a higher proportion of their incomes on it, and because they had higher rates of smoking.
Australia's "disproportionate" focus on cutting nicotine supply rather than reducing demand and harm echoed the "War on Drugs", Jegasothy argued in a joint paper with Deakin University's Martin.
"As with Australia's broader War on Drugs, there is little evidence to suggest that our de facto War on Nicotine is an optimal strategy for reducing nicotine-related harms," it warns.
djw/sft/dan/fox

economy

Australian PM lures voters with supermarket crackdown

  • Asked how abuses would be addressed, he promised "heavy fines to make sure that they know that if they're ripping people off, then they're in the gun to pay a heavy penalty."
  • Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese promised Sunday to outlaw supermarket price gouging with the threat of heavy fines, ahead of a tightly fought May 3 general election.
  • Asked how abuses would be addressed, he promised "heavy fines to make sure that they know that if they're ripping people off, then they're in the gun to pay a heavy penalty."
Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese promised Sunday to outlaw supermarket price gouging with the threat of heavy fines, ahead of a tightly fought May 3 general election.
The supermarket crackdown and a surprise income tax cut are among a string of government proposals to ease the cost of living, which voters consistently cite as a top concern.
Surveys show the centre-left government and conservative opposition running neck-and-neck in the election race.
"Australians deserve a fair go at the checkout. We will hold the big supermarket chains to account," Albanese told reporters, promising to introduce legislation this year.
Asked how abuses would be addressed, he promised "heavy fines to make sure that they know that if they're ripping people off, then they're in the gun to pay a heavy penalty."
The government would set up a task force with representatives from the Treasury, competition regulators and consumer groups to decide on action, Albanese said.
Australia was looking at overseas examples of regulating unfair pricing, he said, including in Britain and the European Union.
Australia has one of the most concentrated grocery sectors in the world, with big players Coles and Woolworths enjoying considerable power to set prices for consumers and suppliers.

Hung parliament scenario

Competition regulators said in a report this month that the two companies enjoyed growing profit margins and had "limited incentive to compete vigorously with each other on price".
James Paterson, senior member of the main opposition Liberal Party, said the prime minister had failed to define price gouging.
"We are very happy to make price gouging illegal," the senator said in an interview with public broadcaster ABC.
But the opposition also planned to introduce targeted divestment powers, which could be used as a "last resort" if supermarkets abused their market power, he said.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton has proposed cost-of-living measures including a one-year cut to gasoline tax, and a scheme to rein in gas prices by obliging producers to keep a share of output for the domestic market.
Annual consumer price inflation was 2.4 percent in the final quarter of 2024, after peaking at 7.8 percent in 2022.
A YouGov survey released Sunday put support for the ruling Labor Party and conservative opposition coalition level, with Labor at 50.2 percent and the coalition at 49.8 percent on a two-party preferred basis.
That would translate into a hung parliament with Labor one seat short of a majority, it said, putting the government in a "strong" position to remain in power.
djw/fox

women

Are women allowed their own dreams, wonders Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

BY CéLIA LEBUR

  • Out of her sorrow came "Dream Count".
  • Twelve years after her last novel, best-selling Nigerian author and feminist icon Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is making a highly anticipated return with "Dream Count". 
  • Out of her sorrow came "Dream Count".
Twelve years after her last novel, best-selling Nigerian author and feminist icon Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is making a highly anticipated return with "Dream Count". 
The story recounts the intertwined fates of four women from Nigeria who emigrate to the United States and then find out their lives do not work out as planned.  
At its heart is Chiamaka, a writer who defies tradition and refuses the marriage upon which her affluent family back in Nigeria had placed so much hope.  
Zikora, Chiamaka's friend, fulfils her dream of having a child. But the father does not marry her and bails out. 
Chiamaka's cousin has a successful business career but then gives it all up to go back to university.  
And there is Kadiatou, Chiamaka's housemaid and confidante, whose American dream is shattered when she is sexually assaulted by a guest at a luxury hotel.  
"I'm interested in how much of a woman's dream is really hers, and how much is what society has told her to dream about," Adichie told AFP in Paris at the launch of the French edition of her book on March 27. 
"I think that the world is still deeply oppressive to women. Women are judged more harshly for being selfish, for having ambition and for being unapologetic."  
The four women initially think they know what they want from life and love, but doubts creep in when they start to fear they have missed opportunities and struggle with social pressures and racism. 
Yet they continue to support each other. 
"Women are socialised to think of each other as competition. And so when a woman makes the choice to really love and support another woman, it's an act of revolution. It's an act of pushing back at a patriarchal society," Adichie explained. 

Not 'a place to be pitied'

Adichie's 2012 TED talk, "We Should All Be Feminists", propelled her into the mainstream.
It received millions of hits on YouTube and was sampled by Beyonce in the singer's hit "Flawless".  
But she does not like her writing being pigeonholed. 
"I don't think of myself as a 'feminist' writer," she insisted. "I think of myself as a writer. And I'm also a feminist."  
"The problem with labels is that it can be very limiting," she continued. "We would then look at stories through only ideological lenses." 
Instead Adichie thinks novels need to be messy and sometimes contradict opinions and beliefs. 
"We're all full of contradictions," she smiled mischievously.  
Another of her bugbears is the patronising Western stereotype of Africa, the "single story" of a continent plagued by poverty, conflicts, and diseases. 
"There's still the tendency to look at Africa as a place to be pitied," she said.  
"And I think it's very troubling because you cannot understand a place like Nigeria, for example, if you look at it only as a place to be pitied." 
Nigeria is a major oil producer, has a thriving business culture, global pop stars and Nollywood -- Africa's answer to Hollywood. 

A way out of grief

Not that everything is all rosy. Young Nigerians are leaving en masse, fleeing inflation and unemployment in search of a better future abroad. 
That, in Adichie's view, is the fault of the present government, which "is not at all in any way focused on ordinary people's lives". 
"I want to sit in judgment of the government, not in judgment of those who have dreams," she said.
Now 47, Adichie has seen her works translated into more than 50 languages and won a string of prestigious literary awards -– including the Orange Prize for "Half of a Yellow Sun" (2006) and the National Book Critics Circle Award for "Americanah" (2013). 
But when she was pregnant with her first child, a daughter born in 2016, she was seized by crippling writer's block -- every wordsmith's nightmare.  
It was the loss of her mother in 2021, only months after the death of her father, that broke the stalemate.
Out of her sorrow came "Dream Count".
"Only when I was almost done did I realise: 'My God, it's about my mother!'" she said in an interview with Britain's Guardian newspaper in February. 
"I think my mother helped me," she told AFP. "I think she said: 'You know, I need to get my daughter writing again so that she doesn't go completely mad from grief.'" 
She said this book is "very different from anything else I've done". 
"This is the first novel that I've written as a mother. And this is the first I've written as an orphan," Adichie explained. 
"It's made my writing different. Because I think when you look differently at the world, what you create becomes different."
cl/pma/gil/bc/dhc

quake

Myanmar quake toll passes 1,600 as rescuers dig for survivors

BY HLA-HLA HTAY AND SEBASTIEN BERGER, WITH THANAPORN PROMYAMYAI IN BANGKOK

  • - Bangkok building collapse - Across the border in Bangkok, rescuers were continuing to work Saturday as a second night drew in, searching for survivors trapped when a 30-storey skyscraper under construction collapsed.
  • The death toll from a huge earthquake that hit Myanmar and Thailand passed 1,600 on Saturday, as rescuers dug through the rubble of collapsed buildings in a desperate search for survivors.
  • - Bangkok building collapse - Across the border in Bangkok, rescuers were continuing to work Saturday as a second night drew in, searching for survivors trapped when a 30-storey skyscraper under construction collapsed.
The death toll from a huge earthquake that hit Myanmar and Thailand passed 1,600 on Saturday, as rescuers dug through the rubble of collapsed buildings in a desperate search for survivors.
The shallow 7.7-magnitude quake struck northwest of the city of Sagaing in central Myanmar early Friday afternoon, followed minutes later by a 6.7-magnitude aftershock.
The quake destroyed buildings, downed bridges, and buckled roads across swathes of Myanmar, with massive destruction seen in Mandalay, the country's second biggest city and home to more than 1.7 million people.
"We need aid," said Thar Aye, 68, a Mandalay resident. "We don't have enough of anything."
At least 1,644 people were killed and more than 3,400 injured in Myanmar, with at least 139 more missing, the junta said in a statement. Around 10 more deaths have been confirmed in Bangkok.
But with communications badly disrupted, the true scale of the disaster is only starting to emerge from the isolated military-ruled state, and the toll is expected to rise significantly.
In Mandalay, AFP journalists saw rescuers pull a woman alive from the remains of one apartment block where a Red Cross official said more than 90 people could be trapped. 
After hours of painstaking work at the Sky Villa Condominium, half of whose 12 storeys were flattened by the quake, Phyu Lay Khaing, 30, was brought out and carried by stretcher to be embraced by her husband and taken to hospital.
Another woman at the apartment block was less fortunate. Her 20-year-old son, an employee at the building, is still missing.
"We cannot find him yet. I only have this child -- I feel so heartbroken," said Min Min Khine, 56, a staff cook at the building.
"He ate at my dining room and said goodbye. Then he left and the earthquake happened. If he was with me, he might have escaped like me," she told AFP.
Elsewhere in Mandalay, AFP journalists saw dozens of people preparing to bed down for the night in the streets, preferring to sleep in the open rather than take the risk in quake-damaged buildings. 

'Started shaking'

This was the biggest quake to hit Myanmar in decades, according to geologists, and the tremors were powerful enough to severely damage buildings across Bangkok, hundreds of kilometres (miles) away from the epicentre.
AFP journalists saw a centuries-old Buddhist pagoda in Mandalay that had been reduced to rubble.
"The monastery also collapsed. One monk died, some people were injured, we pulled out some people and took them to the hospital," said a soldier at a nearby checkpoint.
There are reports of damage to Mandalay Airport, which would complicate relief efforts in a country whose rescue services and healthcare system have already been ravaged by four years of civil war sparked by a military coup in 2021. 

Rare junta plea for help

Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing issued an exceptionally rare appeal for international aid on Friday, indicating the severity of the calamity. 
Previous military governments have shunned foreign assistance, even after major natural disasters.
The country declared a state of emergency across the six worst-affected regions after the quake, and at one major hospital in the capital, Naypyidaw, medics were forced to treat the wounded in the open air.
Offers of foreign assistance began coming in, with President Donald Trump pledging US help.
An initial aid delivery arrived from India, while China said it sent more than 80 rescuers to Myanmar and pledged $13.8 million in emergency assistance.
Aid agencies have warned that Myanmar is unprepared to deal with a disaster of this magnitude. Some 3.5 million people were displaced by the raging civil war, many at risk of hunger, even before the quake struck.
The UN humanitarian agency OCHA said Saturday that the emergency response was being hindered by a "severe shortage" of medical supplies, along with damaged roads and communications infrastructure.

Bangkok building collapse

Across the border in Bangkok, rescuers were continuing to work Saturday as a second night drew in, searching for survivors trapped when a 30-storey skyscraper under construction collapsed.
Bangkok governor Chadchart Sittipunt told reporters that eight people had been confirmed dead in the building collapse so far.
But he said 79 were still unaccounted for at the building, close to the Chatuchak weekend market that is a magnet for tourists.
"All my friends and my brother were in the building when it collapsed", said construction worker Khin Aung.
Sniffer dogs and thermal imaging drones were deployed to seek signs of life in the rubble.
Bangkok city authorities said they will deploy more than 100 engineers to inspect buildings for safety after receiving over 2,000 reports of damage.
burs-pfc/sst/bfm

earthquake

Myanmar quake: what we know

BY SARA HUSSEIN

  • - Over 1,600 killed - At least 1,644 people were killed and more than 3,400 injured in Myanmar, the ruling junta said in a statement.
  • A powerful earthquake centred in Myanmar has killed more than 1,600 people in the war-torn country and neighbouring Thailand -- and caused widespread damage.
  • - Over 1,600 killed - At least 1,644 people were killed and more than 3,400 injured in Myanmar, the ruling junta said in a statement.
A powerful earthquake centred in Myanmar has killed more than 1,600 people in the war-torn country and neighbouring Thailand -- and caused widespread damage.
Here is what we know:

Powerful, and shallow

The 7.7-magnitude quake hit northwest of Myanmar's Sagaing at 12:50 pm (0620 GMT) on Friday at a shallow depth.
It was followed minutes later by a powerful 6.7-magnitude aftershock and a dozen smaller tremors.
The quake was felt across the region, with shaking reported from India to the west and China to the east, as well as Cambodia and Laos.
It was the biggest quake to hit Myanmar in decades, according to geologists.
The quake hit along the Sagaing Fault that runs from the coast to Myanmar's northern border, according to earthquake scientists Judith Hubbard and Kyle Bradley.
It "has long been considered one of the most dangerous strike-slip faults on Earth" because of its proximity to major cities Yangon and Mandalay, as well as the capital Naypyidaw, they wrote in an analysis.
The fault is comparatively simple and straight, which geologists believe can lead to especially large quakes, they added.

Over 1,600 killed

At least 1,644 people were killed and more than 3,400 injured in Myanmar, the ruling junta said in a statement.
The toll is expected to rise significantly, given the widespread destruction across the country.
Myanmar's four years of civil war, sparked by the military seizing power, have also weakened the country's emergency and health services, leaving them ill-equipped to respond to such a disaster.
In Thailand, 10 people were killed in Bangkok, most in the collapse of an under-construction skyscraper.
The city's governor said 79 people were still unaccounted for at the building, near the sprawling Chatuchak market.

Widespread damage

With communications badly disrupted in Myanmar, the true scale of the disaster is only starting to emerge from the isolated military-ruled state.
There was massive destruction in Mandalay, where multiple buildings collapsed into piles of rubble and twisted metal coated in dust, dotted with people attempting rescues.
The Ava bridge running across the Irrawaddy river from Sagaing, built nearly 100 years ago, collapsed into the swirling waters below.
There were reports of damage to Mandalay airport, potentially complicating relief efforts, as well as to the city's university and palace, according to the Red Cross.
In Naypyidaw, AFP reporters saw buildings toppled and roads ruptured.
At a hospital in the capital, patients were being treated outdoors after the quake damaged the building, bringing down the emergency department's entrance.
Electricity outages were reported in several places, with power limited to four hours in Yangon due to quake damage.
Communications across affected areas were also patchy, with phone networks largely down.
In Bangkok, a crane collapsed at a second building site and the city shut down metro and light rail services overnight to inspect for damage.
Several hundred people slept in parks overnight, city authorities said, either unable to get home or worried about the structural integrity of their buildings.
The quake prompted thousands of people to flee shaking buildings in Thailand, where quakes are rare.
Even hospitals were evacuated, with one woman delivering a baby in the street in Bangkok, and a surgeon continuing to operate on a patient after being forced to leave the theatre mid-surgery.

Aid pleas, offers

The scale of the devastation prompted Myanmar's isolated military regime to make a rare plea for international assistance.
Myanmar's junta chief invited "any country, any organisation" to help with relief and said he "opened all ways for foreign aid".
Offers of assistance flooded in, including a flight from neighbour India arriving in Yangon on Saturday, carrying hygiene kits, blankets, food parcels and other essentials.
China sent teams of rescuers while the European Union pledged support, and US President Donald Trump said Washington had "already spoken" with Myanmar about aid.
"It's a real bad one, and we will be helping," he told reporters.
The World Health Organization said it was preparing to surge support in response to "a very, very big threat to life and health".
burs-sah/pdw/rsc/sst

quake

'Everyone was screaming': quake shocks Thailand tourists

BY SALLY JENSEN AND MONTIRA RUNGJIRAJITTRANON

  • Some were lazing in rooftop pools when the powerful shaking began to slop the water off the edge of high-rise buildings.
  • French tourist Augustin Gus was shopping for a t-shirt in one of Bangkok's many malls when a massive quake began shaking the building in the Thai capital.
  • Some were lazing in rooftop pools when the powerful shaking began to slop the water off the edge of high-rise buildings.
French tourist Augustin Gus was shopping for a t-shirt in one of Bangkok's many malls when a massive quake began shaking the building in the Thai capital.
"Just when I left the elevator, the earth starts moving. I thought it was me... it was not me," the 23-year-old told AFP.
"Everyone was screaming and running, so I started screaming as well."
The powerful 7.7-magnitude quake struck Friday afternoon in neighbouring Myanmar, where over 1,000 people have been killed and several cities face large-scale destruction.
The damage and toll was far smaller in Bangkok, with 10 people confirmed dead so far, most in the collapse of an under-construction skyscraper.
For many tourists who flocked to the popular destination, the quake was a disconcerting experience.
Some were lazing in rooftop pools when the powerful shaking began to slop the water off the edge of high-rise buildings.
Others were left stranded in the streets with their luggage when the city's metro and light-rail system shut down for safety checks after the quake.
The city's residents, unused to earthquakes, were not able to offer much guidance, said one business traveller from the Solomon Islands, who asked not to be named.
"Unfortunately there were no procedures in place" during his evacuation from the 21st floor of a Bangkok skyscraper on Friday.
"So everyone was getting confused," he said. "I just wanted to get out." 
Cristina Mangion, 31, from Malta, was in her hotel bed when the shaking began.
"I thought I was feeling dizzy from the heat," she told AFP.
Hotel staff came to knock at the doors of each room to offer help, and Mangion's father quickly messaged to check she was okay.

Soldiering on

Despite the experience Mangion and Gus were among the tourists out on Saturday at the sprawling Chatuchak market.
The popular tourist draw is not far from the scene of the deadly building collapse, and market security guard Yim Songtakob said crowds were thinner than usual.
"That's normal... people are scared," said the 55-year-old, who has worked at the market for a decade.
Still, Mangion said she would not be deterred by the tremors.
"I feel bad for what happened," she said. 
"I think the best thing is to actually come here and... really help the locals with their business anyway because this weekend will probably be harder than usual for business."
Gus also said he was not worried about enjoying the rest of his three-week trip.
"I'll still have great memories, it's just an experience and that's why I'm travelling," he said.
Frenchman Gilles Franke, a regular visitor to Thailand who hopes to one day retire in the country, was equally sanguine about the risk of aftershocks.
"When it's your time, it's your time," the 59-year-old told AFP.
"You can die when you cross the road, you can die at any time in your life."
bur/pdw

quake

Deadly earthquake forces Thai patients into sports hall

  • When the earthquake struck, patients at Rajavithi Hospital were rushed out of the building, some helped down stairs to nearby makeshift shelters, including to the hospital's canteen and sports hall.
  • Beneath basketball hoops and beside football goals, hospital beds line a sports hall -- patients evacuated from a hospital in the Thai capital for fear of damage by a devastating earthquake.
  • When the earthquake struck, patients at Rajavithi Hospital were rushed out of the building, some helped down stairs to nearby makeshift shelters, including to the hospital's canteen and sports hall.
Beneath basketball hoops and beside football goals, hospital beds line a sports hall -- patients evacuated from a hospital in the Thai capital for fear of damage by a devastating earthquake.
The shallow 7.7-magnitude quake struck central Myanmar on Friday afternoon, followed minutes later by a 6.7-magnitude aftershock -- with powerful tremors shaking Bangkok, more than 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) to the south.
When the earthquake struck, patients at Rajavithi Hospital were rushed out of the building, some helped down stairs to nearby makeshift shelters, including to the hospital's canteen and sports hall.
The worst impact was in Myanmar, where the junta said at least 1,002 people were killed and nearly 2,400 injured.
Around 10 more deaths have been confirmed in Bangkok, where the Friday lunchtime tremors shook buildings and created panic on the streets.
The construction site of a new 30-storey government building quickly turned into a disaster scene, with people jumping into cars to escape or shrieking as they fled on foot.
Dramatic video footage showed the tremor rocking a high-rise hotel, with water from its rooftop pool whipping over the building's edge.

Fear

At the hospital, staff rushed to take the patients outside.
One patient, being treated for leukaemia, told AFP that she was moved from her private room to a hall in Rajavithi Hospital, walking down multiple flights of stairs aided by nurses.
"I need to receive my blood platelets soon, and the hospital is currently checking which other hospital can provide the treatment," she said, asking not to be named.
Some were later moved back inside, while others were transferred to different hospitals this morning, a hospital staff member said.
On Saturday, around 30 patients were in the hall, where hospital staff provided basic medical care including blood transfusions.
Many Bangkok residents were terrified, remaining fearful about aftershocks.
Some chose to sleep outside under trees in open spaces in Bangkok, or popped up tents in the park for the night. 
Others came out to help.
Panadda Wongphudee, an actor and a former Miss Thailand who often takes part in volunteer activities, handed out refreshments to rescue workers.
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quake

Scientists explain why Myanmar quake was so deadly

  • This disaster exposes what governments of Burma/Myanmar failed to do long before the earthquake, which would have saved lives during the shaking."
  • Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modelling suggesting thousands could be dead.
  • This disaster exposes what governments of Burma/Myanmar failed to do long before the earthquake, which would have saved lives during the shaking."
Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modelling suggesting thousands could be dead.
Automatic assessments from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow 7.7-magnitude quake northwest of the central Myanmar city of Sagaing triggered a red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses.
"High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread," it said, locating the epicentre near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, home to more than a million people.
Myanmar's ruling junta said on Saturday morning that the number killed had passed 1,000, with more than 2,000 injured.
However, the USGS analysis said there was a 35 percent chance that possible fatalities could be in the range of 10,000-100,000 people.
The USGS offered a similar likelihood that the financial damage could total tens of thousands of millions of dollars, warning that it might exceed the GDP of Myanmar.
Weak infrastructure will complicate relief efforts in the isolated, military-ruled state, where rescue services and the healthcare system have already been ravaged by four years of civil war sparked by a military coup in 2021.

Dangerous fault

Bill McGuire, emeritus professor of geophysical and climate hazards at University College London (UCL), said it was "probably the biggest earthquake on the Myanmar mainland in three-quarters of a century".
A 6.7-magnitude aftershock struck minutes after the first and McGuire warned that "more can be expected".
Rebecca Bell, a tectonics expert at Imperial College London (ICL), suggested it was a side-to-side "strike-slip" of the Sagaing Fault.
This is where the Indian tectonic plate, to the west, meets the Sunda plate that forms much of Southeast Asia -- a fault similar in scale and movement to the San Andreas Fault in California.
"The Sagaing fault is very long, 1,200 kilometres (745 miles), and very straight," Bell said. "The straight nature means earthquakes can rupture over large areas -- and the larger the area of the fault that slips, the larger the earthquake."
Earthquakes in such cases can be "particularly destructive", Bell added, explaining that since the quake takes place at a shallow depth, its seismic energy has dissipated little by the time it reaches populated areas above.
That causes "a lot of shaking at the surface", Bell said.

Building boom

Myanmar has been hit by powerful quakes in the past.
There have been more than 14 earthquakes with a magnitude of 6 or above in the past century, including a magnitude 6.8 earthquake near Mandalay in 1956, said Brian Baptie, a seismologist with the British Geological Survey.
Ian Watkinson, from the department of earth sciences at Royal Holloway University of London, said what had changed in recent decades was the "boom in high-rise buildings constructed from reinforced concrete".
Myanmar has been riven by years of conflict and there is a low level of building design enforcement. 
"Critically, during all previous magnitude 7 or larger earthquakes along the Sagaing Fault, Myanmar was relatively undeveloped, with mostly low-rise timber-framed buildings and brick-built religious monuments," Watkinson said. 
"Today's earthquake is the first test of modern Myanmar's infrastructure against a large, shallow-focus earthquake close to its major cities."
Baptie said that at least 2.8 million people in Myanmar were in hard-hit areas where most lived in buildings "constructed from timber and unreinforced brick masonry" that are vulnerable to earthquake shaking.
"The usual mantra is that 'earthquakes don't kill people; collapsing infrastructure does'," said Ilan Kelman, an expert in disaster reduction at UCL.
"Governments are responsible for planning regulations and building codes. This disaster exposes what governments of Burma/Myanmar failed to do long before the earthquake, which would have saved lives during the shaking."

Skyscraper checks

Strong tremors also rocked neighbouring Thailand, where a 30-storey skyscraper under construction was reduced to a pile of dusty concrete, trapping workers in the debris.
Christian Malaga-Chuquitaype, from ICL's civil and environmental engineering department, said the nature of the ground in Bangkok contributed to the impact on the city, despite being some 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) from the epicentre in Myanmar. 
"Even though Bangkok is far from active faults, its soft soil amplifies the shaking," he said. "This affects especially tall buildings during distant earthquakes." 
Malaga-Chuquitaype said the construction techniques in Bangkok favouring "flat slabs" -- where floors are held only by columns without using strengthening beams, like a table supported only by legs -- were a "problematic design".
He said that initial video analysis of the collapsed tower block in Bangkok suggested this type of construction technique had been used.
"It performs poorly during earthquakes, often failing in a brittle and sudden (almost explosive) manner," he said.
Roberto Gentile, a catastrophe risk modelling expert from UCL, said the "dramatic collapse" of the Bangkok tower block meant that "other tall buildings in the city may require a thorough assessment".
Bangkok city authorities said they will deploy more than 100 engineers to inspect buildings for safety after receiving more than 2,000 reports of damage.
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