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.”


Trump warns against infiltration by a ‘bad Santa,’ defends coal in jovial Christmas calls with kids

Updated 25 December 2025
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Trump warns against infiltration by a ‘bad Santa,’ defends coal in jovial Christmas calls with kids

  • Take potshots at his critics, "including the Radical Left Scum that is doing everything possible to destroy our Country, but are failing badly”

 

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida: President Donald Trump marked Christmas Eve by quizzing children calling in about what presents they were excited about receiving, while promising to not let a “bad Santa” infiltrate the country and even suggesting that a stocking full of coal may not be so bad.
Vacationing at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, the president and first lady Melania Trump participated in the tradition of talking to youngsters dialing into the North American Aerospace Defense Command, which playfully tracks Santa’s progress around the globe.
“We want to make sure that Santa is being good. Santa’s a very good person,” Trump said while speaking to kids ages 4 and 10 in Oklahoma. “We want to make sure that he’s not infiltrated, that we’re not infiltrating into our country a bad Santa.”
He didn’t elaborate.
Trump has often marked Christmases past with criticisms of his political enemies, including in 2024, when he posted, “Merry Christmas to the Radical Left Lunatics.” During his first term, Trump wrote online early on Dec. 24, 2017, targeting a top FBI official he believed was biased against him, as well as the news media.
Shortly after wrapping up Wednesday’s Christmas Eve calls, in fact, he returned to that theme, posting: “Merry Christmas to all, including the Radical Left Scum that is doing everything possible to destroy our Country, but are failing badly.”
But Trump was in a jovial mood while talking with the kids. He even said at one point that he “could do this all day long” but likely would have to get back to more pressing matters like efforts to quell the fighting in Russia’s war with Ukraine.
When an 8-year-old from North Carolina, asked if Santa would be mad if no one leaves cookies out for him, Trump said he didn’t think so, “But I think he’ll be very disappointed.”
“You know, Santa’s — he tends to be a little bit on the cherubic side. You know what cherubic means? A little on the heavy side,” Trump joked. “I think Santa would like some cookies.”
The president and first lady Melania Trump sat side-by-side and took about a dozen calls between them. At one point, while his wife was on the phone and Trump was waiting to be connected to another call, he noted how little attention she was paying to him: “She’s able to focus totally, without listening.”
Asked by an 8-year-old girl in Kansas what she’d like Santa to bring, the answer came back, “Uh, not coal.”
“You mean clean, beautiful coal?” Trump replied, evoking a favored campaign slogan he’s long used when promising to revive domestic coal production.
“I had to do that, I’m sorry,” the president added, laughing and even causing the first lady, who was on a separate call, to turn toward him and grin.
“Coal is clean and beautiful. Please remember that, at all costs,” Trump said. “But you don’t want clean, beautiful coal, right?”
“No,” the caller responded, saying she’d prefer a Barbie doll, clothes and candy.