BANGKOK, March 31 — Rescuers freed a woman from the ruins of a hotel in Myanmar, officials said today, a glimmer of hope three days after a massive earthquake that killed around 2,000 as searchers in Myanmar and Thailand raced against time to find more survivors.
The woman was pulled from the rubble of the Great Wall Hotel in the city of Mandalay, according to a Chinese government post on Facebook.
Mandalay is near the epicentre of the 7.7-magnitude earthquake on Friday that wreaked mass devastation in Myanmar and damage in neighbouring Thailand.
In Bangkok, Thailand's capital, emergency crews resumed a desperate search today for 76 people believed buried under the rubble of an under-construction skyscraper that collapsed.
After nearly three days, fears were growing that the rescuers would find more dead bodies, which could sharply raise Thailand's death toll, which stood at 18 yesterday.
In Myanmar, state media said at least 1,700 people have been confirmed dead. The Wall Street Journal reported that the death toll had reached 2,028 in Myanmar. Reuters could not immediately confirm the new death toll.
A rescue team carried a woman out of the rubble of the Great Wall Hotel in Mandalay nearly 60 hours after the quake hit, the Chinese embassy in Myanmar said in a Facebook post, adding she was reported to be in a stable condition.
The United Nations (UN) said it was rushing relief supplies to an estimated 23,000 quake-hit survivors in central Myanmar.
"Our teams in Mandalay are joining efforts to scale up the humanitarian response despite going through the trauma themselves
"Time is of the essence as Myanmar needs global solidarity and support through this immense devastation," said the UN refugee agency's representative in Myanmar Noriko Takagi.
India, China, and Thailand are among Myanmar's neighbours that have sent relief materials and teams, along with aid and personnel from Malaysia, Singapore, and Russia.
The United States pledged US$2 million (RM8.87 million) in aid "through Myanmar-based humanitarian assistance organizations".
It said in a statement that an emergency response team from the United States Agency for International Development, which is undergoing massive cuts under the Trump administration, is deploying to Myanmar.
The quake devastation has piled more misery on Myanmar, which was already in chaos from a civil war that grew out of a nationwide uprising after a 2021 military coup ousted the elected government of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
One rebel group said the military was still conducting airstrikes on villages in the aftermath of the quake, and Singapore's foreign minister called for an immediate ceasefire to help relief efforts.
Critical infrastructure — including bridges, highways, airports, and railways — across the country of 55 million lie damaged, slowing humanitarian efforts while the conflict that has battered the economy, displaced over 3.5 million people and debilitated the health system rages on.
— Reuters
