(Reuters)
BANGKOK, April 1- Aid groups arriving in the worst-hit areas of Myanmar said there was an urgent need for shelter, food and water after last week’s devastating quake which killed more than 2,000 people, including 50 preschoolers in one school.
The 7.7 magnitude quake, which hit around lunchtime on Friday, was the strongest to hit the Southeast Asian country in more than a century, toppling ancient pagodas and modern buildings alike.
In neighbouring Thailand, rescuers pressed on searching for life in the rubble of a collapsed skyscraper in the capital Bangkok.
In Myanmar’s Mandalay area, 50 preschoolers and two teachers were killed when their school collapsed, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
“In the hardest-hit areas …communities struggle to meet their basic needs, such as access to clean water and sanitation, while emergency teams work tirelessly to locate survivors and provide life-saving aid,” the UN body said in a report.
The International Rescue Committee said shelter, food, water and medical help were all needed in places such as Mandalay, near the epicentre of the quake.
“Having lived through the terror of the earthquake, people now fear aftershocks and are sleeping outside on roads or in open fields,” an IRC worker in Mandalay said in a report.
“There is an urgent need for tents, as even those whose homes remain intact are too afraid to sleep indoors.”
State media has reported Myanmar’s death toll at 2,065, with more than 3,900 injured and at least 270 missing. The military government declared a week-long mourning period from Monday.
Civil war in Myanmar, where the junta seized power in a coup in 2021, has complicated efforts to reach those injured and made homeless by the Southeast Asian nation’s biggest quake in a century.
