As darkness fell in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second largest city, many residents set up small tents and prepared to sleep on the streets rather than risk going back to their homes.
“We are afraid that some weak buildings might collapse,” said Ko Ko, who asked not to give his full name.
Mandalay was one of the areas worst affected by Friday’s earthquake, a shallow 7.7-magnitude tremor that was followed minutes later by a 6.4-magnitude aftershock.
Ko Ko had been driving in his car when the ground shook for the second time. “We stopped at the corner of the road because of the shaking. At that moment, a hospital collapsed right in front of me, like waffle sheets crumbling, and a large cloud of dust emerged like in the movie scene,” he said.
Most places in Mandalay were badly damaged, he added.
The extent of the destruction could take time to emerge. Myanmar is ruled by a repressive military junta that took power in 2021, and which has banned most independent media, forcing journalists to operate underground or in exile.
After the earthquake, the military – which has few allies – made a rare plea for international help, suggesting deep concern over the damage.
The military seized power after ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, a move that was widely opposed by the public and triggered an armed resistance made up of a patchwork of pro-democracy groups and ethnic armed organisations. The junta has since lost swathes of territory along its borders, though it remains in control of areas such as Mandalay.
Nadi, who also asked not to give her full name, said her brother-in-law, Imran, had been praying inside a mosque when the ground began to shake violently on Friday afternoon. The force of the quake brought down all buildings inside the mosque compound.
He tried to escape, said Nadi, but was bleeding heavily. “The mobile phone networks were down and the rescue teams arrived very late,” she said. He died, aged 18.
Nadi said the mosque was one of two that collapsed in the area. A hotel building and surrounding houses had also been destroyed. “The hotel collapsed up to the third floor, and hotel staff and the owner remain trapped,” she said. “People are still trapped inside the houses.”
The casualties, Nadi said, were becoming “higher and higher”.
Footage shared on social media showed scenes of destruction: monasteries, mosques, flats and roads either damaged or destroyed. One video showed the University of Mandalay consumed by thick smoke, while images elsewhere in the city showed buildings brought to the ground or skewed by the force of the quake.
Another showed a group of monks ducking as a large building in the distance collapsed entirely. Yet another, taken outside a damaged mosque, showed people clambering over debris and bricks. An eyewitness said eight people had been killed and others were feared trapped after a construction building in Pyigyidagun Township also collapsed.
The military regime has called for blood donors as public hospitals in the Sagaing and Mandalay regions filled with patients.
Hundreds of casualties were also taken to a hospital in the capital, Naypyidaw, where the emergency department’s entrance had collapsed on to a car, AFP reported. Patients were treated outside. “I haven’t seen [something] like this before,” a doctor told AFP. “We are trying to handle the situation. I’m so exhausted now.”
Emergency services in Myanmar were already severely overstretched by the coup and subsequent conflict.
“Myanmar is in a dire situation, where the military junta’s four-year war of attrition has plunged a third of the population – 20 million people – into poverty and humanitarian need,” said the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar, an independent group of international experts set up after the coup to support the return of democracy.
The earthquake, the group added, had “come at a precarious moment when crippling aid cuts have left vulnerable communities more exposed than ever”.
Ko Ko said people needed reliable information, but social media feeds, where accessible, were instead flooded with unverified reports, or messages about mandatory conscription from the widely loathed military.
With rescuers overrun, local people have sought to protect themselves, he added. “People are managing on their own to solve the problem. The residents have blocked the overpass because they are afraid it will collapse.”
The aftershocks from Friday’s earthquake continued into the evening. “About an hour ago, I felt it shake for about two seconds,” he said. For now, people in Mandalay felt safer sleeping outside.
