Mandalay: The death toll from a massive earthquake in Myanmar has climbed to 3,471, as search and rescue teams continue to find more bodies, state media reported Sunday. The magnitude 7.7 quake that struck on April 28 also injured 4,671 victims and left 214 missing as of Saturday.
According to Anadolu Agency, about 653 people trapped under the rubble of buildings were rescued by local and international rescue teams, while 682 bodies were retrieved from the debris. The UN’s top aid official, Tom Fletcher, who met victims in the central city of Mandalay, situated near the epicenter of the quake, described the situation as “staggering,” and urged the international community to “stand behind the people of Myanmar.”
Aid groups fear that a combination of unseasonable rains and extreme heat could cause outbreaks of disease, including cholera, for survivors camping in the open. “Families sleeping outside the ruins of their homes while bodies of loved ones are pulled from rubble. Real fear of more quakes,” Fletcher wrote on X.
Meanwhile, the Yangon-Mandalay railway line and Mandalay International Airport reopened after being closed due to damage caused by the earthquake. Tremors had damaged 60 embankments and 11 railway bridges along the Yangon-Mandalay line, aside from causing the tracks to bend in some areas.