Myanmar was rocked by a devastating magnitude 7.7 earthquake on Friday, the strongest earthquake in Myanmar in at least 100 years, with the epicenter just 10 miles outside of Mandalay, Myanmar’s second largest city. Significant impacts were also felt in the capital Naypyidaw; a state of emergency was declared there as well as in Sagaing, Magwe, and Bago Regions and Shan State. Tremors were felt hundreds of miles away, including by all of Myanmar’s neighboring countries, with the quake toppling an under-construction high rise in Bangkok.
Friday’s earthquake did not occur in a vacuum but on top of a crisis that has continued to accelerate in the wake of the February 2021 military coup. Following the November 2020 elections, win hich Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party swept in a landslide, the Myanmar military leveled unsubstantiated allegations of fraud against the NLD, which they used as justification to launch the coup. Opposition to military rule that started with peaceful protests and nationwide strikes turned to armed resistance after the military opened fire on demonstrations.
In the years since, battle-hardened ethnic armed groups and ragtag resistance forces have steadily eroded the control of the State Administration Council (SAC), as the military regime is known, across the country, particularly in the last year and a half. The impact of the conflict, though, has been devastating. Even before the earthquake, conflict monitors recorded nearly 14,000 civilian fatalities (nearly half of which have been verified) and nearly 75,000 total fatalities since the coup. More than 3.5 million people were internally displaced, some because the military has torched over 100,000 homes, while many others fled to third countries for refuge or in seek of work. Some 20 million people in Myanmar were already in need of humanitarian assistance and 15 million facing hunger. There was a 9% contraction in the economy and a doubling of poverty rates prior to the coup to nearly half the population. A seven-fold increase in malaria and tuberculosis cases combined with a collapse in vaccination campaigns underscore the transboundary risks of ongoing conflict, which will no doubt increase in the wake of last week’s earthquake.
The earthquake will compound all these challenges. The recovery is likely to be slow, painful, and with a disproportionate impact on Myanmar’s most vulnerable.
Measuring the Devastation
The death toll has risen steadily to over 2,700 according to the SAC and to nearly 4,000 according to local media, though response teams are running out of body bags, crematoriums in Mandalay are overwhelmed, and the real number of fatalities may be far higher, particularly given that information is just starting to trickle out from smaller towns.
The earthquake will compound all these challenges. The recovery is likely to be slow, painful, and with a disproportionate impact on Myanmar’s most vulnerable.
Indeed, the U.S. Geological Survey estimates a near 70% chance deaths could reach 10,000 – and a 33% chance they could exceed 100,000, though that now seems unlikely.
The physical damage is also extensive, with thousands of buildings collapsing (including government buildings in Naypyidaw) or destroyed by fire, roads buckling, historic buildings and religious sites crumbling, and damage forcing the closure of airports in Mandalay and Naypyidaw, where the control tower collapsed; the USGS predicts economic losses could exceed US$10 billion and may even surpass Myanmar’s annual GDP of about $65 billion.
Major Impediments to Relief
For survivors, the challenges are just beginning. In addition to the mental traumas, including many witnessing the deaths of loved ones, survivors face shortages of food, safe drinking water, medicine, and shelter, with scores of residents forced to sleep outside. Rescue and relief efforts have been hampered by dozens of aftershocks, including several above a magnitude of 5.0 and by power shortages, damage to the electrical grid, and telecommunication restrictions, some of which have been imposed across the country since the military coup in 2021. In addition, the challenges are compounded by the searing “hot season”, with temperatures in Mandalay topping 100 degrees; a lack of heavy machinery available to aid rescue efforts; an exodus, particularly of young men, from urban areas because of military-led conscription drives and Myanmar’s faltering economy; and the decimation of Myanmar’s health system as a result of both COVID and the coup, in which a large percentage of health workers joined the Civil Disobedience Movement and went on strike, with many shifting to private and underground health facilities or providing medical care in ethnic armed group and resistance-controlled territories.
Despite being systematically targeted by the military for arrest or worse, however, some health workers have offered to return and provide treatment in earthquake-hit areas if the SAC guarantees their safety.
A Complex Aid Response
As the areas most impacted by the earthquake are largely under the control of the military, the SAC is likely to require that aid providers work through them or with their acquiescence. Some donors will be reluctant to provide aid via the military while some recipients may reject it, either for fear that it would amount to an endorsement of the military or that those opposed to the military may be targeted for arrest or forcibly conscripted into the military.
The politics of assistance will be even more complicated in areas that the military does not control, particularly given the military’s long history of politicizing humanitarian assistance for its benefit and blocking assistance to areas it does not control as a part of its “four cuts” counterinsurgency strategy, which seeks to deprive insurgents of food, funds, information, and recruits. In the days after the earthquake, local media reported over 30 military airstrikes and artillery attacks, some within hours of the earthquake and one, on Monday, that killed an estimated 40 in Kachin State.
Moreover, despite claims from the United Nations, there are already indications that the military is blocking some assistance in areas it does not control in Sagaing, which neighbors Mandalay, and that it may use the earthquake as a pretext to re-exert control. Recognizing the risk of disaster relief being exploited by the SAC, 265 civil society organizations called for assistance to be routed through community organizations, ethnic groups, and the opposition National Unity Government (NUG) and not the military regime; the NUG expressed a similar sentiment. The SAC has also blocked foreign media from entering the country, allegedly because it is not safe. Meanwhile, journalists in the country report soldiers standing by while volunteers undertake rescue efforts.
These dynamics underscore just how complex the aid response will be, even as SAC Chairman Min Aung Hlaing called for “any country or organization to come and assist”.
At least a dozen countries have pledged assistance, with China sending search-and-rescue teams the day after the earthquake and committing nearly US $14 million in aid, followed shortly by relief from India, ASEAN member states, and others in the region. The United Kingdom, United States, and others have also pledged relief, though a team from the U.S. did not arrive to Myanmar until five days after the quake, well after the critical window for rescue efforts has closed, and, despite claims to the contrary, its capacity to respond has been significantly reduced by cuts to foreign assistance and a loss of critical expertise.
An earthquake of this magnitude would be a tragedy even in the best of conditions. In the current circumstances in Myanmar, it is a true disaster.
There is also a risk that the SAC leader, Min Aung Hlaing, uses the inflow of assistance to rehabilitate his reputation internationally. He has portrayed himself as a statesman in calls with Xi Jinping, Narendra Modi, and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and the SAC has plastered regime-controlled media with images of relief efforts and messages of condolence from world leaders. That Min Aung Hlaing arrived in Thailand for the BIMSTEC summit on Thursday despite on-going recovery efforts in Myanmar reflects his desire for respect internationally and a relative confidence in his position at the top of the SAC.
Pauses in Offensive Operations
In response to the earthquake, the NUG announced that armed groups it controls would on Sunday, March 30 begin a two-week pause on offensive military operations in areas affected by the earthquake, while the Three Brotherhood Alliance, a trio of powerful ethnic armed groups, announced a one month pause in offensives. Min Aung Hlaing initially rejected calls for a ceasefire, but on April 2 he announced a three-week unilateral temporary ceasefire, while retaining the right to take “response measures”. The SAC’s announcement was quickly followed by a three-week unilateral ceasefire by the Kachin Independence Army.
The wave of pauses on offensive operations may reflect self-interest – allowing armed forces an opportunity to rest, rearm, and plan or to redirect resources towards response and recovery efforts and away from armed actions – so there is reason to be skeptical the ceasefires will hold. Moreover, there are many armed actors that have not yet proactively announced ceasefires and the military does not have a good track record of abiding by even its own unilateral ceasefires. Indeed, there have already been reports of clashes in Kachin and airstrikes there as well as in Sagaing. Nonetheless, the pauses offer the best opportunity to deliver relief and begin recovery in impacted areas.
An earthquake of this magnitude would be a tragedy even in the best of conditions. In the current circumstances in Myanmar, it is a true disaster.
Also Read: As Anti-Junta Resistance Transforms Myanmar, Can India Afford to Play it Safe?
Views expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the positions of South Asian Voices, the Stimson Center, or our supporters.
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Image 1: VOA photo via Wikimedia Commons
Image 2: China News Service via Wikimedia Commons