More than 700 Muslims were killed in Myanmar earthquake

 

 

 

A MYANMAR Muslim organisation says more than 700 worshipers were killed when the 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck the country at Friday prayer time during the holy month of Ramzan. Tun Kyi, a member of the steering committee of the Spring Revolution Myanmar Muslim Network, said on Monday that some 60 mosques were damaged or destroyed when the 7.7 magnitude quake hit near Mandalay, the country’s second largest city. It was not immediately clear whether those killed in the mosques were included in the official toll of more than 1,700 people killed in the earthquake so far. Videos posted on The Irrawaddy online news site showed several mosques toppling during the quake, and people fleeing from the areas. Tun Kyi said most of the mosques damaged were older buildings more vulnerable to earthquakes.

 

Death toll rises to 2000: The death toll in last week’s massive earthquake in Myanmar has passed 2,000, state media said on Monday, as accounts of some people’s last moments emerged: Two hundred Buddhist monks crushed by a collapsing monastery. Fifty children killed when a preschool classroom crumbled. Seven hundred Muslims struck while praying at mosques for Ramzan. The quake could exacerbate hunger and disease outbreaks in a country that was already one of the world’s most challenging places for humanitarian organisations to operate because of civil war, aid groups and the United Nations warned. The 7.7 magnitude quake hit Friday, with the epicentre near Myanmar’s second-largest city of Mandalay. It damaged the city’s airport, buckled roads and collapsed hundreds of buildings along a wide swath down the country’s centre. Relief efforts are further hampered by power outages, fuel shortages and spotty communications.

 

A lack of heavy machinery has slowed search-and-rescue operations, forcing many to search for survivors by hand in daily temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit). Rescue workers at Mandalay’s collapsed U Hla Thein monastery said they were still searching for about 150 of the dead monks. Some 700 Muslim worshipers attending Friday prayers were killed when mosques collapsed, said Tun Kyi, a member of the steering committee of the Spring Revolution Myanmar Muslim Network. He said some 60 mosques were damaged or destroyed. Videos posted on The Irrawaddy online news site showed several mosques toppling. It was not clear whether those numbers were already included in the official toll. Myanmar state MRTV reported that the leader of the military government, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, told Pakistan’s Prime Minister during a call that 2,065 people were killed, with more than 3,900 injured and about 270 missing. Relief agencies expect those numbers to rise sharply, since access is slow to remote areas where communications are down. The United Nations’ Myanmar country team called for unimpeded access for aid teams.

 

“Even before this earthquake, nearly 20 million people in Myanmar were in need of humanitarian assistance,” said Marcoluigi Corsi, the UN Resident and humanitarian coordinator. Devastation’s full extent is not clear. Myanmar's neighbors and allies send aid: International rescue teams from several countries are on the scene, including from Russia, China, India and several Southeast Asian countries. On Monday, an Indian team jackhammered through slabs of fallen concrete at one site in Mandalay. They could be seen bringing out one body. India on Monday delivered a fresh tranche of 50 tonnes of relief materials to Myanmar to help victims. The relief materials were taken to the Myanmarese city of Yangon by two Indian Navy ships -- INS Satpura and INS Savitri.

 

Three more Indian Navy ships -- INS Karmukh, INS Gharial and LCU-52 -- are enroute to Yangon with over 500 tonnes of additional aid material, officials said The European Union, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and others have announced millions of dollars in aid. NDRF retrieves 7 bodies: The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) on Monday recovered seven bodies from the earthquake flattened buildings in Mandalay region of Myanmar after the Indian rescuers were tasked with launching relief and rescue operations in about a dozen buildings. The NDRF has been asked to work in 13 buildings in Sector D of Mandalay city, the second largest urban area of the country, about 65 kms from the airport in capital Naypitaw. At least seven bodies have been retrieved by NDRF personnel till now who landed in the country on Saturday as part of the humanitarian ‘Operation Brahma’ launched by India to help its neighbour with which it shares a 1,643-km-long international boundary. The 80 Indian federal rescuers are also working at the U hla thein monastery where 170 monks are stated to be stuck. 3 bodies (out of the 7) were recovered by the NDRF from this location.

 

The squad, armed with plasma cutters, hammers and other equipment used to search beneath collapsed structures, has also deployed four canines to search for signs of life which look to be “very bleak”. The temperature in Myanmar is high and hence the aim of the NDRF and other local and foreign rescue teams is to quickly retrieve bodies so that an epidemic does not break out due to rotting, the sources said.