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A Buddhist monk walks near Maharmyatmuni pagoda in the aftermath of an earthquake, in Mandalay, central Myanmar, Sunday, March 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Thein Zaw)
| Photo Credit: Thein Zaw
(This article is part of the View From India newsletter curated by The Hindu’s foreign affairs experts. To get the newsletter in your inbox every Monday, subscribe here.)
There are political disasters, and then natural disasters that periodically remind us of our collective fragility.
Hopes of finding more survivors in the rubble of Mandalay — where some residents spent a third night sleeping in the open after a massive earthquake killed at least 1,700 people in Myanmar and neighbouring Thailand — are fading, according to reports today.
Rescue efforts were less active in the central Myanmar city of more than 1.7 million people early Monday, but conditions are difficult — with temperatures expected to reach around 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit). The Guardian reported that the US Geological Survey’s predictive modelling estimates Myanmar’s death toll could eventually top 10,000 and losses could exceed the country’s annual economic output. According to the Red Cross Myanmar is facing “a level of devastation that hasn’t been seen over a century in Asia”. In neighbouring Thailand, at least 18 people have been killed. Rescue operations persist to find dozens who are still missing.
Indian military aircraft made multiple sorties into Myanmar over the weekend, ferrying supplies and search-and-rescue crews to Naypyitaw, the capital, parts of which were devastated by the quake. Several Chinese rescue teams have also arrived, including one that crossed overland from Yunnan province, according to China’s embassy in Myanmar.
In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, locals gather near a collapsed building in the aftermath of an earthquake in Mandalay, Myanmar on Saturday, March 29, 2025 (Myo Kyaw Soe/Xinhua via AP)
| Photo Credit:
MYO KYAW SOE
It is four years since the military overturned the democratically elected government in Myanmar and the junta has “driven the country further into a human rights and humanitarian catastrophe”, according to Human Rights Watch. Millions have been displaced, while civic space has continued to shrink. Myanmar’s resistance forces on Sunday (March 30, 2025) accused the military junta of launching attacks on rebel targets in the earthquake-hit areas in the country’s Sagaing region and Shan state, Kallol Bhattacherjee reported.
“Myanmar’s political instability since the coup in 2021 has diverted attention from essential governance issues such as enforcing building codes. While the current damage is irreversible and recovery will take months, the existing ceasefire offers an opportunity to push for political stability,” The Hindu notes in its Editorial today. The lack of political stability exacerbates any disaster, natural or otherwise, as history has repeatedly shown us.
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Published – March 31, 2025 03:49 pm IST
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The View From India newsletter: When disaster strikes – on Myanmar and Thailand earthquake
