Survivors still being found from Myanmar earthquake, but hopes begin to fade as deaths exceed 2,700

People line up on a roadside for free food after their houses was damaged by Friday’s earthquake in Mandalay, Myanmar, Apr. 1, 2025. (AP)
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Updated 01 April 2025
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Survivors still being found from Myanmar earthquake, but hopes begin to fade as deaths exceed 2,700

  • “The needs are massive, and they are rising by the hour,” said Julia Rees, UNICEF’s deputy representative for Myanmar.
  • “The window for lifesaving response is closing”

BANGKOK: Rescue workers saved a 63-year-old woman from the rubble of a building in Myanmar’s capital on Tuesday, but hope was fading of finding many more survivors of the violent earthquake that killed more than 2,700 people, compounding a humanitarian crisis caused by a civil war.
The fire department in Naypyitaw said the woman was successfully pulled from the rubble 91 hours after being buried when the building collapsed in the 7.7 magnitude earthquake that hit midday Friday. Experts say the likelihood of finding survivors drops dramatically after 72 hours.
Death toll numbers forecast to increase
The head of Myanmar’s military government, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, told a forum for relief donations in Naypyitaw that 2,719 people have now been found dead, with 4,521 others injured and 441 missing, Myanmar’s state MRTV television reported.
He said that Friday’s earthquake was the second most powerful in the country’s recorded history after a magnitude 8 quake east of Mandalay in May 1912.
The casualty figures are widely expected to rise, but the earthquake hit a wide swath of the country, leaving many areas without power, telephone or cell connections and damaging roads and bridges, making the full extent of the devastation hard to assess.
Most of the reports so far have come from Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city, which was near the epicenter of the earthquake, and Naypyitaw.
“The needs are massive, and they are rising by the hour,” said Julia Rees, UNICEF’s deputy representative for Myanmar.
“The window for lifesaving response is closing. Across the affected areas, families are facing acute shortages of clean water, food, and medical supplies.”
Myanmar’s fire department said that 403 people have been rescued in Mandalay and 259 bodies have been found so far. In one incident, 50 Buddhist monks who were taking a religious exam in a monastery were killed when the building collapsed, and 150 more are thought to be buried in the rubble.
Structural damage is extensive
The World Health Organization said that more than 10,000 buildings overall are known to have collapsed or been severely damaged by the quake..
The earthquake also rocked neighboring Thailand, causing a high-rise building under construction to collapse and burying many workers.
Two bodies were pulled from the rubble on Monday and another was recovered Tuesday, but dozens were still missing. Overall, there were 21 people killed and 34 injured in Bangkok, primarily at the construction site.
In Myanmar, search and rescue efforts across the affected area paused briefly at midday on Tuesday as people stood for a minute in silent tribute to the dead.
Relief efforts moving at a sluggish pace
Foreign aid workers have been arriving slowly to help in the rescue efforts, but progress lagged due to a lack of heavy machinery in many places.
In one site in Naypyitaw on Tuesday, workers formed a human chain, passing chunks of brick and concrete out hand-by-hand from the ruins of a collapsed building.
The state Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported Tuesday that a team of Chinese rescuers saved four people the day before from the ruins of the Sky Villa, a large apartment complex that collapsed during the quake. They included a 5-year-old and a pregnant woman who had been trapped for more than 60 hours.
It also reported two teenagers were able to crawl out of the rubble of the same building to where rescue crews were working, using their cellphone flashlights to help guide them. The rescue workers were then able to use details from what they told them to locate their grandmother and sibling.
International rescue teams from several countries are on the scene, including from Russia, China, India, the United Arab Emirates and several Southeast Asian countries. The US Embassy said an American team had been sent but hadn’t yet arrived.
Aid pledges pouring in as officials warn of disease outbreak risk
Meantime, multiple countries have pledged millions in assistance to help Myanmar and humanitarian aid organizations with the monumental task ahead.
Even before the earthquake, more than 3 million people had been displaced from their homes by Myanmar’s brutal civil war, and nearly 20 million were in need, according to the UN
Many were already lacking in basic medical care and standard vaccinations, and the destruction of water and sanitation infrastructure by the earthquake raises the risk of disease outbreaks, warned the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
“The displacement of thousands into overcrowded shelters, coupled with the destruction of water and sanitation infrastructure, has significantly heightened the risk of communicable disease outbreaks,” OCHA said in its latest report.
“Vulnerability to respiratory infections, skin diseases, vector-borne illnesses such as dengue fever, and vaccine-preventable diseases like measles is escalating,” it added.
The onset of monsoon season also a worry
Shelter is also a major problem, especially with the monsoon season looming.
Since the earthquake, many people have been sleeping outside, either because homes were destroyed or out of fear of aftershocks.
Civil war complicates disaster relief
Myanmar’s military seized power in 2021 from the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, sparking what has turned into significant armed resistance and a brutal civil war.
Government forces have lost control of much of Myanmar, and many places were dangerous or impossible for aid groups to reach even before the quake.
Military attacks and those from some anti-military groups have not stopped in the aftermath of the earthquake, though the shadow opposition National Unity Government has called a unilateral ceasefire for its forces.
The NUG, established by elected lawmakers who were ousted in 2021, called for the international community to ensure humanitarian aid is delivered directly to the earthquake victims, urging “vigilance against any attempts by the military junta to divert or obstruct humanitarian assistance.”
“Any obstruction to these efforts will have devastating consequences, not only due to the impact of the earthquake but also because of the junta’s continued brutality, which actively hinders the delivery of lifesaving assistance,” the group said in a statement.
The ceasefire plan for the armed wing of the NUG, called the People’s Defense Force, would have little effect on the battlefield, but could draw more international condemnation of continuing operations by the military, including air attacks reported by independent media.
A second armed opposition group, a coalition of three powerful ethnic minority guerrilla armies called the Three Brotherhood Alliance, announced Tuesday that it would also implement a monthlong unilateral ceasefire.
However, Min Aung Hlaing seemed to reject implementing a ceasefire, saying in his speech on Tuesday that the military will continue to take necessary defensive measures against some ethnic armed groups that were currently not carrying out combat operations, but were conducting military training, which amounted to hostile action.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the military has been impeding humanitarian aid. In the past, it initially refused to allow in foreign rescue teams or many emergency supplies after Cyclone Nargis in 2008, which resulted in well more than 100,000 deaths. Even once it did allow foreign assistance, it was with severe restrictions.
In this case, however, Min Aung Hlaing pointedly said on the day of the earthquake that the country would accept outside help.
Tom Andrews, a monitor on rights in Myanmar commissioned by the UN-backed Human Rights Council, said on X that to facilitate aid, military attacks must stop.
“The focus in Myanmar must be on saving lives, not taking them,” he said.


World Food Program and other UN aid agencies slash jobs amid US funding cuts, officials say

Updated 57 min 56 sec ago
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World Food Program and other UN aid agencies slash jobs amid US funding cuts, officials say

  • The WFP, also a United Nations organization, is expected to cut up to 30 percent of its staff
  • UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was “deeply troubled by the drastic funding reduction”

UNITED NATIONS: The World Food Program and the United Nations refugee agency will slash jobs because of funding cuts, mainly from the United States, officials told AP on Tuesday, warning the reductions will severely affect aid programs worldwide.
The WFP, also a United Nations organization, is expected to cut up to 30 percent of its staff. The head of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said it would downsize its headquarters and regional offices to reduce costs by 30 percent and cut senior-level positions by 50 percent.
That’s according to internal memos obtained by The AP and verified by two UN officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the internal personnel decisions. Other agencies like UNICEF — the UN children’s agency, and OCHA — the organization’s humanitarian agency — have also announced or plan to announce cuts that would impact around 20 percent of staff and overall budgets.
One WFP official called the cuts “the most massive” seen by the agency in the past 25 years, and that as a result, operations will disappear or be downsized.
The cuts to the UN agencies underscore the impact of President Donald Trump’s decision to pull back the US from its position as the world’s single largest aid donor. Trump has given billionaire ally Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency power to redo the scale of the federal government, with a focus on slashing foreign assistance. Even before the administration’s move, many donor nations had reduced humanitarian spending, and UN agencies struggled to reach funding goals.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was “deeply troubled by the drastic funding reduction.”
“The heads of our humanitarian agencies are being forced to take impossibly painful decisions as budget cuts have an immediate and often deadly impact on the world’s most vulnerable,” Dujarric said in a statement to The AP. “We understand the pressures on national budgets faced by governments, but these cuts come at a time when military spending again hits record levels.”
World Food Program
The WFP, the world’s largest humanitarian organization, received 46 percent of its funding from the United States in 2024.
Asked about the planned cuts, the organization said in a statement that “in this challenging donor environment, WFP will prioritize its limited resources on vital programs that bring urgently needed food assistance to the 343 million people struggling with hunger and increasingly facing starvation.”
The internal memo said personnel cuts will “impact all geographies, divisions and levels” in the agency. It suggested further downsizing may be needed and said the agency will review its “portfolio of programs.”
In early April, The AP reported that the Trump administration had sent notices terminating funding for WFP programs in more than a dozen countries. The terminations were reversed days later in several countries but maintained the cuts in Afghanistan and Yemen, two of the world’s poorest and most war-ravaged countries.
UN High Commissioner for Refugees
The UN’s top refugee agency provides help to some 43.7 million refugees worldwide, along with others among the 122 million people driven from their homes by conflicts and natural disasters.
It said a statement that the agency will “have to significantly reduce our workforce,” including downsizing the headquarters and regional offices. UNHCR said some country offices will be closed, but it did not give an immediate figure of how many staff will be cut.
“The impact of this funding crunch on refugees’ lives is already devastating and will get far worse,” the agency said. Programs providing food, clean water, medicines, emergency shelter and other services “will reduce or stop.”
For example, it said, reduced funding will cut access to clean water for at least half a million displaced people in Sudan, increasing the risk of cholera and other disease outbreaks.
It will also hurt efforts to house and provide schooling for refugees from Sudan in South Sudan, Chad and Uganda. It warned that the lack of facilities in host countries will push more refugees to attempt dangerous crossings to Europe.
In the April 23 email to staff, the UNHCR chief said the headquarters and regional offices will be downsized to cut costs by 30 percent. It said senior-level positions will be capped to bring a 50 percent reduction.
The cuts “will affect our operations, the size of our organization, and, most worryingly, the very people we are called to protect,” it said. “It is critical that we prioritize, as we always have, the well-being and safety of refugees and of displaced and stateless people.”
UNHCR’s office in Lebanon — which is home to some 1 million refugees from Syria, is only 15 percent funded, its spokesperson Lisa Abou Khaled said.
This month, it had to stop cash assistance to 347,000 refugees — two-thirds of the number it previously helped — and funding for the remaining 200,000 will last only through June, she said. It also halted primary health services for some 40,000 refugees.
UNICEF
The UN children’s agency told AP in a statement Tuesday that it projects that its funding will be at least 20 percent less in 2025 compared to 2024.
“Hard-earned gains and future progress for children are at risk because of a global funding crisis in which some donors are sharply decreasing their financial support to UNICEF and our partners, as well as their contributions to international aid more broadly,” a UNICEF spokesperson said.
The organization said that while it has already implemented efficiency measures, “more cost-cutting steps will be required.” Officials are looking at “every aspect” of their sprawling operations in over 190 countries and territories, which focus on delivering life-saving and life-sustaining humanitarian aid and advocating for policies that promote children’s rights.
International Organization for Migration
The UN agency said last month that it had been hit by a 30 percent decrease in funding for the year, mainly because of US cuts. It said it was ending programs that affect 6,000 personnel and reducing its staff at headquarters by 20 percent.


Swedish police say several people injured in apparent shooting

Updated 21 min 54 sec ago
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Swedish police say several people injured in apparent shooting

  • Police said they had received calls from members of the public
  • “Several people have been found with injuries that indicate gunfire”

STOCKHOLM: Several people were injured in the Swedish city of Uppsala on Tuesday after a series of loud bangs that indicated gunfire, police said, without immediately providing any further details on what might have happened.
In a statement, the police said they had received calls from members of the public who heard noises that sounded like gunshots being fired in the city center. Emergency services are on the scene, the police added.
“Several people have been found with injuries that indicate gunfire,” the statement said.
A local hospital declined to comment on the condition of those injured.
Police said they had cordoned off a large area and had begun an investigation.
Ten people were killed in February in the Swedish city of Orebro in the country’s deadliest ever mass shooting, in which a 35-year-old unemployed loner opened fire on students and teachers at an adult education center.
The Nordic country’s right-wing government subsequently said it would seek to
tighten gun laws.


Zelensky calls for fair peace with no ‘rewards’ for Putin

Updated 29 April 2025
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Zelensky calls for fair peace with no ‘rewards’ for Putin

  • “We all want this war to end in a fair way — with no rewards for Putin, especially no land,” Zelensky said
  • Moscow holds about 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory

KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called Tuesday for a “fair” end to the war with Russia without “rewards” for Vladimir Putin, pushing back against demands for Kyiv to make territorial concessions.
“We all want this war to end in a fair way — with no rewards for Putin, especially no land,” Zelensky said via videoconference at a summit organized by Poland.
The comment came amid reports the United States suggested to freeze the front line and accept the Russian control of the Crimean peninsula, which it seized in 2014, something Zelensky balks at.
But US President Donald Trump said Sunday he believed the Ukrainian leader might concede the Black Sea peninsula as part of a settlement.
Russia has also repeatedly demanded to keep the territory in southern and eastern Ukraine that it occupies and for Kyiv to cede even more land.
Moscow holds about 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory after launching its 2022 invasion that has killed thousands of people and devastated swathes of land.
Washington has said that this week will be “critical” for peace efforts.


Over 72,000 migrants dead, disappeared globally since 2014: UN

Updated 29 April 2025
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Over 72,000 migrants dead, disappeared globally since 2014: UN

  • One in four were “from countries affected by humanitarian crises ,” said the IOM’s Missing Migrants Report
  • More than 52,000 people died while trying to escape from one of the 40 countries in the world where the UN has a crisis response plan

GENEVA: More than 72,000 deaths and disappearances have been documented along migration routes around the world in the past decade, most of them in crisis-affected countries, the United Nations said on Tuesday.
Last year saw the highest migrant death toll on record, with at least 8,938 people dying on migration routes, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
“These numbers are a tragic reminder that people risk their lives when insecurity, lack of opportunity, and other pressures leave them with no safe or viable options at home,” IOM chief Amy Pope said in a statement.
The report by her UN agency found that nearly three-quarters of all migrant deaths and disappearances recorded globally since 2014 occurred as people fled insecurity, conflict, disaster and other humanitarian crises.
One in four were “from countries affected by humanitarian crises, with the deaths of thousands of Afghans, Rohingya, and Syrians documented on migration routes worldwide,” said the IOM’s Missing Migrants Report.
The report said that more than 52,000 people died while trying to escape from one of the 40 countries in the world where the UN has a crisis response plan or humanitarian response plan in place.
Pope urged international investment “to create stability and opportunity within communities, so that migration is a choice, not a necessity.”
“And when staying is no longer possible, we must work together to enable safe, legal, and orderly pathways that protect lives.”
The Central Mediterranean remains the deadliest migration route in the world, with nearly 25,000 people lost at sea in the past decade, IOM said.
More than 12,000 of those had been lost at sea after departing from war-torn Libya, with countless others disappearing while transiting the Sahara Desert, the report said.
More than 5,000 people died while trying to leave crisis-ravaged Afghanistan in the past decade, many of them since the Taliban retook power in 2021.
And more than 3,100 members of Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya minority had died during the period, many in shipwrecks or while crossing into Bangladesh.
“Too often, migrants fall through the cracks,” warned Julia Black, coordinator of IOM’s Missing Migrants Project and author of the report.
“And due to data gaps — especially in war zones and disaster areas — the true death toll is likely far higher than what we’ve recorded,” she said in the statement.


German police arrest suspected leader of Syrian smuggling gang

Updated 29 April 2025
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German police arrest suspected leader of Syrian smuggling gang

  • The 32-year-old suspect was detained at his home in the northeastern town of Aerzen
  • Police said the man made a living from his activities in the gang

BERLIN: German police said Tuesday that they had arrested the suspected head of a Syrian smuggling gang that allegedly helped more than 1,000 people illegally enter Germany via Poland.
The 32-year-old suspect was detained at his home in the northeastern town of Aerzen, federal police said in a statement.
Police said the man made a living from his activities in the gang, which he is alleged to have led since 2021.
Depending on the route, the organization is said to have charged between 2,500 to 13,000 euros ($2,850 to $14,800) per person to smuggle them into Germany.
The gang transported over 1,000 people, mostly Syrians and Iraqis, into Germany and other European countries in around 100 different operations, police said.
The smuggled people were thought to have entered the European Union “on foot across the Belarusian border” before crossing from Poland into Germany, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said.
Police searched three properties in connection with the arrest, one belonging to the suspect in Aerzen and two apartments in nearby Rinteln and Hameln linked to two Syrian men in their twenties believed to have “acted as accomplices.”
Officers seized passports, residence permits and other documents during the raids.
Germany has sought to crack down on illegal entries into the country in the wake of a series of attacks by asylum seekers that sparked a bitter public debate over immigration.
The government took the decision to impose controls at all its borders last September, and has signalled it will keep them in place until the EU’s immigration system is overhauled again.
Immigration was a dominant theme during Germany’s recent national elections and is seen as a key factor behind the far-right Alternative for Germany’s historic score of over 20 percent.
Incoming chancellor Friedrich Merz, who is set to take office next week, has vowed a tough line on immigration to respond to voter concerns.