A huge earthquake in Myanmar March 28, which killed over 3,000 people and injured thousands more, is fueling growing anger among working people against the military junta there. The government sent troops to the hardest-hit areas, but they were tasked with protecting government buildings, not helping save lives of those trapped under collapsed buildings. Thousands of volunteers sprang into action to try to do so.
“When we heard the screams of people calling for help at the collapsed buildings,” Ko Tun Win in the city of Mandalay told Frontier Myanmar news magazine, “we removed debris with our own hands and with small hammers.”
Military officials refused to provide any tools or equipment to dig with. They “didn’t allow us to start our rescue operations at first,” he said.
The 7.7 magnitude earthquake caused widespread destruction in Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city; Sagaing; Nay Pyi Taw, the country’s capital; elsewhere in the country; and in neighboring Thailand. Some 28 million people, more than half of the country’s population, were affected. This included areas where rebels fighting against the military regime have been making gains.
The U.S. Geological Survey predicts the death toll could eventually exceed 10,000. Thousands of houses were damaged or destroyed, as well as other structures, including hospitals and places of worship.
The fight by working people against the military dictatorship has been going on for years. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing seized power in a coup Feb. 1, 2021, just days before the new parliament was to convene after Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy won the November 2020 election in a landslide. Suu Kyi had been the head of the government since 2016.
In response, unionists and other workers organized mass protests against the coup, with thousands taking to the streets daily, demanding an end to military rule. When these mobilizations were put down in blood, armed resistance groups and forces from some of the numerous ethnic minorities in the country organized to challenge the junta. They’ve taken control of 42% of the country. BBC reports the military now controls less than 25%.
This war has displaced some 3.5 million people, with millions of others left with little food and water. Nearly a third of those who fled their homes moved to Sagaing, an agricultural region near Mandalay producing rice, pulses and watermelon, and a center of opposition to the regime. Over 90% of this region sustained damage from the earthquake.
Junta airstrikes target opposition
In an effort to crush resistance to its rule, the junta over the past few years has unleashed massive air attacks, destroying schools, monasteries, churches and hospitals. Both Moscow and Beijing have supported and funded the government’s assaults, selling sophisticated attack jets to the junta and providing military training.
Even as volunteers attempted to pull people from the rubble, the military regime continued to bomb rebel-held areas. They also turned away aid convoys or demanded the supplies be handed over to the government instead.
Under the pressure of the worldwide attention focused on the disaster, Min Aung Hlaing, chief of Myanmar’s junta, announced a temporary ceasefire, to run April 2-22. But he made clear military operations would continue as “necessary protective measures.” And they have.
“The military has carried out at least 53 attacks, including strikes by aircraft and drones, artillery and paramotors, in areas affected by the earthquake,” U.N. spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told Irrawaddy, a Yangon-based news site, April 4. They have also set fire to villages in the Mandalay region.
The U.S. government has done little to provide aid in the midst of the human catastrophe, donating $2 million and promising $7 million more.
Building collapses in Bangkok
Since the dictatorship took power, millions of working people have been forced to leave Myanmar in search of work. This includes 2.3 million people now living in Thailand. Some were construction workers who hired on at a 30-story building being constructed in Bangkok. The unfinished structure collapsed under the impact of the quake in Myanmar, 600 miles away.
But the quake wasn’t the main cause of the collapse. To boost its profits, Beijing’s China Railway 10th Engineering Group, which was contracted to put up the building, used substandard rebar and columns constructed narrower than usual.
The building “collapsed from the bottom, not the top,” Pennung Warnitchai, director of the Earthquake Research Center of Thailand, told the New York Times, In an effort to cover up their responsibility for the disaster, company contractors were caught trying to remove incriminating records from the site.
More than a week after the building collapsed, at least 15 of the 100 workers on the site were dead and more than 70 still missing.