[Source: Reuters]

Aid groups in Myanmar on Tuesday described scenes of devastation and desperation after an earthquake that killed more than 2,700 people, stressing an urgent need for food, water and shelter and warning the window to find survivors was fast closing.

Myanmar’s military ruler Min Aung Hlaing said the death toll from Friday’s 7.7 magnitude quake was expected to surpass 3,000, having reached 2,719 as of Tuesday morning, with 4,521 people injured, and 441 missing.

“Among the missing, most are assumed to be dead. There is a narrow chance for them to remain alive,” he said in a speech.

The quake, which struck at lunchtime on Friday, was the strongest to hit the Southeast Asian country in more than a century, toppling ancient pagodas and modern buildings alike.

It inflicted significant damage on Myanmar’s second city Mandalay and Naypyitaw, the capital the previous junta purpose-built to be an impregnable fortress.

The earthquake was the latest in a succession of blows for the impoverished country of 53 million people following a 2021 coup that returned the military to power and devastated the economy after a decade of development and tentative democracy.

Myanmar’s military has been accused of widespread atrocities against civilians in its attempts to maintain power and quell a multi-pronged rebellion that unfolded after the coup, and the civil war had displaced more than 3 million people long before the quake struck.

It has dismissed the accusations as misinformation and says it is protecting the country from terrorists.

The death toll rose to 21 in neighbouring Thailand on Tuesday, where the quake caused damage to hundreds of buildings. Rescuers pressed on searching for life in the rubble of a collapsed skyscraper under construction in the capital Bangkok, but acknowledged time was against them.

In Myanmar, U.N. agencies said hospitals were overwhelmed and rescue efforts hindered by infrastructure damage and the civil war. Rebels have accused the military of conducting airstrikes even after the quake and on Tuesday a major rebel alliance declared a unilateral ceasefire to help relief efforts.

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