The head of the Myanmar junta is expected to travel to Bangkok on Thursday for a regional summit, six days after the country ruled by his armed forces was pummelled by a devastating earthquake.
Min Aung Hlaing will join a BIMSTEC gathering — the seven littoral nations of the Bay of Bengal — where he will raise the response to Friday’s 7.7-magnitude quake that has killed nearly 3,000 people.
Many nations have sent aid and teams of rescue workers to Myanmar since the quake, but heavily damaged infrastructure and patchy communications — as well as the country’s rumbling civil war — have hampered efforts.
Myanmar has been engulfed in a brutal conflict since 2021, when Min Aung Hlaing’s military wrested power from the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Following reports of sporadic clashes even after the recent earthquake, the junta on Wednesday joined its opponents in calling a temporary halt to hostilities to allow relief to be delivered.
AFP journalists saw hectic scenes on Wednesday in the city of Sagaing — less than 15 kilometres (nine miles) from the epicentre — as hundreds of desperate people lined up for the distribution of emergency supplies.
Destruction in the city is widespread, with the World Health Organization (WHO) reporting that one in three houses have collapsed.
Nearly a week after the quake, locals have complained of a lack of help.
“We have a well for drinking water, but we have no fuel for the water pump,” Aye Thikar told AFP.
“We also don’t know how long we will be without electricity,” she said.
The 63-year-old nun has been helping distribute relief funds to those left without basic amenities by Friday’s quake.
But many people are still in need of mosquito nets and blankets, forced to sleep outside by the tremors that either destroyed their homes or severely damaged them.
“People passing by on the road have generously donated water and food to us. We rely solely on their kindness,” she said.
– Eyes on summit –
All the main leaders from the seven members of the BIMSTEC — Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand — are expected to attend the Bangkok summit.
Host country Thailand has proposed that the leaders issue a joint statement on the impact of the disaster when they meet on Friday — a week on from the day the quake struck.
Min Aung Hlaing’s attendance is something of a diplomatic coup for Myanmar’s isolated government, as the summit breaks with a regional policy of not inviting junta leaders to major events.
Bangkok, hundreds of kilometres from the epicentre of the quake, also suffered isolated damage.
The death toll in the city has risen to 22, with more than 70 still unaccounted for at the site of a building collapse.
A 30-storey skyscraper — under construction at the time — was reduced to a pile of rubble in a matter of seconds when the tremors hit, trapping dozens of workers.
Workers are still scouring the immense pile of debris, but chances of finding more survivors are diminishing.
Bangkok governor Chadchart Sittipunt said in a Thursday morning livestream that he was “hoping for a miracle, but don’t expect too much as there’s a high chance of disappointment too”.
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