In Myanmar, the shocks of settlement and the air attacks of the earthquake terrify residents

Myo Zaw and his team of voluntary rescue operators were the first to arrive at the site where a three -story house had collapsed in Mandalay, shortly after 20:00 on Saturday. They were digging through the rubble with bare hands when they heard a girl’s voice.

It was weak but clear. “Help me, I’m here,” he said.

It took three or four hours to extract the twelve year old, who had survived despite the house he reversed around her. But in the early hours of Sunday morning, there was only silence while the rescuers continued to work with a warmth of almost 100 degrees. In the end they discovered three bodies: the mother of the girl and her grandparents.

“Unfortunately, I’m afraid that we will find more survivors’ bodies,” said Myo Zaw. “Mandalay’s warmth is intense, causing rapid decomposition. In some cases, we locate the bodies only because of the smell.”

The weather is short in Mandalay, the second largest city in Myanmar with about 1.5 million people, which is located near the epicenter of Friday’s devastating earthquake.

Throughout the country, over 1,600 people have been confirmed death, starting from Saturday evening, and over 3,000 injured in the worst earthquake to hit Myanmar in more than a century. Many fear that the number of people who can be saved will decrease after Monday evening, the crucial sign of 72 hours after which experts say that the possibilities of survival decrease abruptly.

Even while voluntary rescuers have patrolled the ruins of houses, monasteries and mosques and overflowing hospitals of patients, shocks of settlement – including a strong Sunday – have maintained residents at the limit. Several buildings in Mandalay who had survived the powerful on Friday earthquake inverted Sunday.

And the military clarified that he would not stop a brutal bombing campaign in a civil war that devastated the country despite the urgent need for rescue efforts, with the reports of an air attack on Sunday afternoon in the town of Pakokku in the Magway region in the north -west of the country who killed two women and injured more seven.

Like the military government and its commander in the head, the Senior Min Aung Hlaing General, a leader already deeply unpopular who has ousted a civil government four years ago, responds in the next few days and weeks could determine the taking of the junta on power. The military government has already lost land due to the rebels in the civil war, which had left almost 20 million of about 54 million people who need refuge and food even before the earthquake, according to the United Nations officials.

In the first hours following the earthquake, a lack of machinery and staff seriously hindered the rescue operations. But the arrival of Chinese rescue teams with heavy equipment on Saturday evening gave volunteers a glimmer of hope.

On Sunday, the volunteers saved 29 people from a Condominium collapsed in Mandalay and recovered eight bodies, according to Soe Paing, a rescuer of the Myanmar Fire Brigade Department. He said the help of the Chinese had accelerated the work.

“At this moment, we believe that about 90 people are still trapped inside,” he said, “and we are doing everything possible to get them out alive.”

Later during the day, a scar of settlement hit Mandalay, sending the residents on the streets, screaming with fear.

Many are facing an uncertain future, rationing food and wonder how they can get by without any power and poor water. The volunteers asked for more body bags for the corpses they are pulling out for now. Many said that the army has done little to help.

Aid from other countries also started coming, but questions remain on how the Myanmar army would have distributed the so much necessary relief. At least half a dozen nations, including India, Malaysia, Russia, Singapore and Thailand, have sent teams and supplies. Some aid, such as a group of Singapore and supplies from India, went to Naypyidaw, the capital, where the military generals live and who was less affected by Mandalay.

“They have a long experience in the use of aid as a weapon,” said Scot Marciel, Ambassador of the United States in Myanmar from 2016 to 2020, of the military government. “I would think they would try to use it to channel the aid to their supporters and prevent them from getting to people in the areas controlled by the Resistance. I have no confidence in them who would do the right thing.”

Padoh saw Taw Nee, a spokesman for the rebel Karen National Union, said that the group welcomed the support of foreign countries but warned them to be “aware of the nature of the military in our country”.

He underlined that the military had not abstained from attacks even after the earthquake, saying: “They could use the money for the war. We worry about this problem”.

Myanmar control is now divided between the military regime, which governs urban areas and ethnic armies, which hold the boundaries. From the coup d’état of 2021, Sagaing – another region that was hit hard by the earthquake – also emerged as a resistance center and is the seat of a patchwork of rebel groups. (Internet access has been interrupted in sagaing, making it difficult to get relationships from there.)

An hour after Friday’s earthquake, a military paramotor or a motor -on -the -motor paraglider, he dropped bombs in the village of Chaung Oo in Sagaing, said Phyu Win, resident. “People were already terrified of the earthquake and, with chaos, it was impossible to take in refuges for bombs,” he said.

The army airplanes continued to fly over their heads from the earthquake. “The junta has no interest in helping people,” said Mrs. Phyu Win. “They just want to kill.”

At some point last year, the rebels had advanced near Mandalay, which was seen by many a potential turning point in the war.

Experts say that the earthquake could change the trajectory of the civil war. The government of national unity, the shadow government in exile, asked for a two -week break in the fighting, but does not speak for the multiple rebel groups and the ethnic armies that fight government forces. The powerful Arakan army, which has won the control of most of the state of Rakhine in Myanmar, could take advantage of this moment to snatch the south of the town away from the junta.

Much will also depend on how General Min Aung Hlaing and his military vision right now.

“Their shoulders are on the wall and cannot face,” said Khin Zaw, a political analyst and director of the Tampadipa Institute, a research group in Yangon, of military sovereigns. “We have reached the point where the military will be forced to yield.”

Richard Horsey, Senior Councilor of Myanmar for the International Crisis Group, defined the earthquake “a moment of danger for Min Aung Hlaing”.

“It is truly a critical moment for him, his inheritance, but also his current regime,” said Horsey. “He does not know exactly how he will end – it is difficult to guess – but he knows that there will be enormous political shocks.”

Verena Hölzl Relationships contributed by Bangkok.