In earthquake-stricken Myanmar, rescuers claw at debris with hands: ‘we are on our own’
‘The cemetery is packed with bodies, there are so many that we are cremating them every three minutes,’ a Sagaing resident says
The frantic search for survivors entered a third day in the parts of Myanmar worst-hit by the massive earthquake which has killed 1,644 people in the military-ruled nation and 17 more in neighbouring Thailand, with the death toll expected to soar.
In Mandalay and Sagaing, the two central Myanmar cities closest to the epicentre of Friday’s record 7.7-magnitude quake – which was followed moments later by a 6.4 aftershock – residents said they were “on their own” with aid yet to reach an area where roads, airports and bridges have been damaged or destroyed.
Pulling slabs of concrete and piles of bricks with bare hands and shovels, rescuers toiled through the night in a dangerous and painstaking effort to extract people from under flattened buildings, pagodas and shops.
There were brief moments of elation in the hellscape left by the earthquake. A woman was pulled from rubble alive after a 30-hour ordeal in Mandalay, one of a smattering of survival stories.
But heartbreak has dominated the days since the quake; a son clasped his dying mother’s hand as she lay trapped under rubble unable to be freed, a nursery was buried under debris and an entire class of young monks taking a liturgy exam was believed to be entombed under the building.
As time passes, hope is fading for the untold number of people pinned under the debris of their homes and businesses.