OUTSIDERS HAD dared wonder if the enormous earthquake which struck Myanmar on March 28th might bring a pause in its awful civil war. The answer did not take long to come. On March 29th the rebel alliance known as the National Unity Government announced a temporary ceasefire so that rescuers could do their job. The military junta, which has held power since a coup in 2021, made no similar pledge. Instead, it has intensified air strikes since the disaster. Its bombs have fallen close to people scrabbling through the rubble to look for survivors.
Myanmar’s ruling generals have form in exploiting natural catastrophes to gain military advantage. When the country was hit by Typhoon Yagi in 2024 and Cyclone Mocha in 2023, which brought deadly floods and winds, the generals blocked foreign-aid deliveries and threw up bureaucratic hurdles to prevent humanitarian workers from reaching areas controlled by the resistance. Fears are growing that the same callousness will leave many victims of the latest disaster without any help.
On Sunday night the official death toll in Myanmar stood at 1,700, though that is certain to increase. The tremor of 7.7 magnitude was the most powerful recorded anywhere in the world since 2023, when a quake in Turkey and Syria killed 55,000 people. The epicentre was in the region of Sagaing, which has been a stronghold for the resistance to the junta since the coup.
Foreign countries are readying assistance for affected communities. China, a close ally of the junta, has sent a team of search-and-rescue workers and pledged nearly $14m in aid. India, which shares a long border with Myanmar, has sent more than 100 health workers and 15 tonnes of supplies. Britain, the EU, Malaysia, Russia, Singapore and South Korea have all promised help of some sort. America, which has slashed its foreign-aid programmes under President Donald Trump, pledged $2m and deployed a USAID team. These humanitarian workers will have to struggle with damaged infrastructure, severed communications links and the regime’s hostility to relief work in rebel-held areas.
The state of Myanmar’s airports, roads and bridges presents the first challenge. The airport in Yangon, the country’s biggest city, is currently the only one able to accept relief flights (air-traffic control towers collapsed at Mandalay and at Naypyidaw, the capital). Roads into the affected regions are partially blocked. The only two bridges that cross the Irrawaddy River between the cities of Mandalay and Sagaing—two big settlements at the centre of the disaster zone—are severely damaged. “Reports of the stench of corpses suggest a much higher rate of casualties [in Sagaing] than the current figures state,” says Nyantha Lin of Anagat Initiatives, a think-tank. “Entire neighbourhoods lie flattened with almost no rescue operations under way.” On the afternoon of March 30th ferries and barges were transporting people and supplies across the river. But that is a tenuous lifeline.
Health services in Myanmar have never been good—and years of turmoil have battered them. Hospitals in Yangon are getting only four hours of electricity each day, according to Chris Skopec of Project HOPE, an NGO that is deploying medical teams. The UN reports that trauma kits, blood bags, anaesthetics and essential medicines are in short supply.
Things are made all the worse by the civil war, in which the junta has been steadily losing ground to resistance forces, which now control more than half of the country. The regime has been forcing private hospitals and clinics to sack health workers believed to support the resistance. At least three private hospitals were recently closed in Mandalay because they were deemed to employ workers who supported civil disobedience. Many doctors and nurses refuse to work for the public system, in protest against the regime. “As many as half of all health workers have left the public system,” says Thomas Kean of Crisis Group, a think-tank.
Meanwhile, interruptions to communications in many parts of the country are making it difficult to co-ordinate relief efforts, or even work out quite how deadly the earthquake has been. Again, the regime’s actions are aggravating the natural damage. The junta has long disrupted internet access in parts of Sagaing region that it does not control, as well as in other areas of the country held by rebels. “We have heard of buildings collapsing as far south as Taungoo, about an hour south of Naypyidaw,” says Mr Lin. “There are many towns we still have no way of contacting.”
A third uncertainty is the largest: where will the junta let humanitarian workers go? Precedent suggests the generals will almost certainly deny access to much of Sagaing region. Aid workers will probably get entry only to areas controlled by the junta, such as the cities of Mandalay and Sagaing.
The earthquake has dealt a blow to Myanmar’s resistance forces. Settlements that have long supported them are now struggling to meet their own basic needs. The catastrophe will also have unsettled the superstitious junta, which sees natural disasters as bad omens. Yet it maintains a tight grip on the country’s economic resources. As the humanitarian crisis deepens, the world faces a crucial test: finding ways to deliver aid to all victims, with or without the junta’s help. ■