Myanmar marks month of misery since historic quake

When a massive earthquake hit Myanmar last month, centuries of sacred history tumbled down. (AFP)
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Updated 28 April 2025
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Myanmar marks month of misery since historic quake

  • The magnitude-7.7 tremor was the strongest with an epicenter on Myanmar’s land mass since 1912
  • Devastation centered on the second most populous city of Mandalay where apartments, hotels and religious institutes were razed or heavily damaged

YANGON: Myanmar marked one month since suffering its fiercest earthquake in more than a century on Monday, with military bombardments unabated despite a humanitarian truce as thousands of survivors camp in makeshift shelters.

The magnitude-7.7 tremor was the strongest with an epicenter on Myanmar’s land mass since 1912, the United States Geological Survey reported, killing nearly 3,800 according to an official toll still rising daily.

Devastation centered on the second most populous city of Mandalay where apartments, tea shops, hotels and religious institutes were razed or heavily damaged.

“It’s been a month but we are still very busy trying to get back what we lost,” said one Mandalay resident who asked to remain anonymous.

“I am not the only one still in difficulty, it’s everyone around me as well.”

With tens of thousands people still homeless as monsoon season approaches, aid agencies are warning of major challenges to come.

“People are extremely concerned about what will happen in the next few weeks,” the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) Myanmar chief Nadia Khoury said.

Meanwhile she said the organization was planning a two-year relief plan because “the geographical magnitude of this earthquake has been absolutely huge.”

The military – which sparked a civil war by snatching power in a 2021 coup – declared a ceasefire to spur relief efforts starting on April 2.

But since then monitors from the Britain-based Center for Information Resilience have logged 65 air attacks by the junta.

A strike on Wednesday killed five people and wounded eight more in a village on the outskirts of the town of Tabayin, residents said, 100 kilometers (62 miles) northwest of the earthquake’s epicenter.

“I managed to hide immediately after I heard explosions but my elder sister couldn’t,” said 40-year-old Ko Aung.

“She ran randomly in a panic during the strike and a piece of shrapnel hit her head. She died on the spot.”

Cho Tint, 46, said she sheltered in a cow shed as a fighter jet dropped two bombs.

“The military announced a ceasefire for the quake but they broke it already and are still attacking civilians,” she said. “That’s them crossing the line.”

In eastern Myanmar residents also said they were forced from their homes in an offensive by opposition armed groups attempting to seize towns on a lucrative trade route to Thailand during the truce, due to last until Wednesday.

After four years of war, half the population were already living in poverty and 3.5 million were displaced before the quake, which sheared the ground up to six meters (20 feet) in places according to NASA analysis.

Khoury said some of the badly-hit regions already had a high level of humanitarian need because they were hosting people displaced by fighting.

“Now it’s become even higher with this earthquake,” she said.

Ahead of the tremor the nation of more than 50 million was also bracing for the impact of international aid cuts following US President Donald Trump’s campaign to slash Washington’s humanitarian budget.

The World Food Programme had said it would cut off one million from vital food aid starting in April as a result of “critical funding shortfalls.”


UN says Myanmar junta using ‘brutal violence’ to force people to vote

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UN says Myanmar junta using ‘brutal violence’ to force people to vote

  • International monitors have dismissed the phased month-long vote as a rebranding of martial rule
  • Turk warned Tuesday that civilians were being threatened by both the military authorities and armed opposition groups over their participation in the polls

GENEVA: The UN said on Tuesday Myanmar’s junta was using violence and intimidation to force people to vote in upcoming military-controlled elections, while armed opposition groups were using similar tactics to keep people away.
“The military authorities in Myanmar must stop using brutal violence to compel people to vote and stop arresting people for expressing any dissenting views,” United Nations rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement.
Myanmar’s junta is set to preside over voting starting Sunday, touting heavily restricted polls as a return to democracy five years after it ousted the last elected government, triggering civil war.
But former civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi remains jailed and her hugely popular party dissolved after soldiers ended the nation’s decade-long democratic experiment in February 2021.
International monitors have dismissed the phased month-long vote as a rebranding of martial rule.
Turk, who last month told AFP that holding elections in Myanmar under the current circumstances was “unfathomable,” warned Tuesday that civilians were being threatened by both the military authorities and armed opposition groups over their participation in the polls.
His statement highlighted the dozens of individuals who have reportedly been detained under an “election protection law” for exercising their freedom of expression.
Many had been slapped with “extremely harsh sentences,” the statement said, pointing to three youths in Hlainghaya Township in the Yangon region who were sentenced to between 42 and 49 years behind bars for hanging up anti-election posters.
The UN rights office said it had also received reports from displaced people in several parts of the country, including the Mandalay region, who had been warned they would be attacked or their homes seized if they did not return to vote.
“Forcing displaced people to undertake unsafe and involuntary returns is a human rights violation,” Turk stressed.
He said that people were also facing “serious threats” from armed groups opposing the military, including nine women teachers from Kyaikto who were reportedly abducted last month while traveling to attend a training on the ballot.
They were then “released with warnings from the perpetrators,” the statement said.
It also pointed to how the self-declared Yangon Army bombed administration offices in Hlegu and North Okkalapa townships in the Yangon region, injuring several election staff, and had vowed to “keep attacking election organizers.”
“These elections are clearly taking place in an environment of violence and repression,” Turk said.
“There are no conditions for the exercise of the rights of freedom of expression, association or peaceful assembly that allow for the free and meaningful participation of the people.”