A catastrophe that reveals itself throughout its tragedy with the passing of the hours. The deaths ascertained so far due to the earthquake of magnitude 7.7 on Friday morning in Myanmar There are more than a thousand and wounded more than double, but given its intensity and the devastation it caused it is thought that the actual number is much greater.
The situation is so disastrous that already on Friday the military junta of the government had asked for the intervention of other countries to provide timely aid: It is an exceptional fact, also because from the stroke of February 2021 Myanmar is an isolated country and with very few international relationships.
More countries have already started to take action, starting from China and India, which bordered to east and west respectively with Myanmar. To give the idea of the immense catastrophe was the unusual appeal to the international aid launched by the Burmese military junta, isolated from the coup of 2021. The premier and head of the junta, Min aung Hlaing, He invited “any country, any organization” to rush, ensuring that he had “open all the ways for foreign aid”.
And received the immediate availability of theIndiawho sent teams of rescuers and doctors, ofEuropean Union, which has allocated 2.5 million euros for initial aid, e of the United States of Donald Trump, while the WHO has announced that it has activated its emergency management system.
The Chinese state press agency Xinhua He said that a team of 37 people from Yunnan arrived with drones, supplies and other tools useful for rescue in Yangon, in the south of Myanmar. The Russian ministry that deals with emergencies instead started two planes with 120 rescuers, medicines, supplies and dogs to look for the missing, wrote the state agency Tass. He sent teams of rescuers and doctors also the Indian government, while the Foreign Ministry of Malaysia, who borders on the South of Thailand, said he will send 50 people on Sunday.
“The drama is that rescue is scarce or are completely absent,” he said toFIDES AGENCY a source, who wants to remain anonymous, of Catholic community of Mandalay, close to Sagaing, Where the earthquake has done more damage, “we see so much solidarity between people, but we register the complete absence of the state. The Sagaing area, the epicenter of the earthquake, is one of those where the clashes for the current civil war are stronger. In the general instability there are no rescue organized for the victims. In the areas that are not under the control of the army, the so -called ‘liberated zones’, There are no functioning civil institutions, therefore everything is entrusted to the goodwill of people or to the organization of the communities and armies of ethnic minorities. In the areas controlled by the junta, some bodies of firefighters are engaged in the capital Naypyiday and Mandalay, where several multi -storey buildings have collapsed, but many other territories are completely abandoned to themselves. The state is completely disinterested in citizens, their condition and their well -being ».
Several Catholic churches in Mandalay have suffered damage: the one most affected is the church of SAn Michele, while 20 people died in the collapse of a mosque in Mandalay. The cathedral of San Giuseppe in the city of Tauntgyi, in the Shann state, is also damaged. Many churches, in Mandalay, Naypyidaw, Yangon, Tauguggyi, interrupted the liturgical celebrations and mobilizing the faithful by activating gestures of solidarity for those who found themselves homeless.
The shocks of magnitude 7.7 and 6.4 hit the center of Myanmar, with an epicenter 16 km northwest of the city of Saigang, along the homonymous fault that crosses the country from north to south, and only 10 km deep. And they spread for thousands of kilometers, reaching nearby Thailand, China, up to Laos and Vietnam.
In addition to the thousands in Myanmar, several victims also in Bangkok, where a 30 -storey skyscraper has collapsed still under construction, buried dozens of workers. “In some areas of the buildings collapsed,” said Min Aung Hlaing on a visit to a hospital in the capital Naypyidaw where the deaths ascertained are currently 96. Here the wounded arrived “en masse” but the emergency room entrance has collapsed and the entire building suffered heavy damage, forcing the health personnel to take charge of hundreds of people outside.
“I’ve never seen anything like that, let’s try to manage the situation,” said A doctor at the FP. It is in fact the strongest shock in the country since 1946 and, according to the Ingv, it has been 300 times more powerful than that which devastated Amatrice in 2016.
The junta therefore declared the state of emergency in six of the seven regions of the country (Sagaing, Mandalay, Magway, in the Northeast of the north-east of the State Shan, Naypyiday and Bago). Even in Mandalay, the second largest city in Myanmar and a few kilometers from the epicenter, several buildings collapsed, including a hospital and a hotel.
Wherever the road surface is torn, the main highway, close to Mandalay, is interrupted, some bridges have collapsed, like that of sagaing. In Taungoo, south of Naypyidaw, about twenty children were trapped under the rubble of a school: according to a local newspaper, Eleven Media Group, five of them would have been extracted lifeless.
Dramatic the situation also in nearby Thailand, Where the Prime Minister FRATONGTARN Shinawatra interrupted an official visit to the island of Phuket to keep an “urgent meeting” and declared the state of emergency. At least 9 people died in Bangkok, while they are believed that there are 110 those trapped under the rubble of the skyscraper under construction where 409 workers were working: the rescuers are at work to look for them also with the help of drones and dogs. The earthquake was then felt distinctly up to Laos and Vietnam. The buildings trembled in the capital, Vientiane and Hanoi, and I have Chi Minh City.
Farnesina is verifying through its embassies the possible involvement of Italian citizens in the earthquake: There are about 100 members of AIRE in Myanmar, 7,000 in Thailand as well as 700 people registered on the site “where we are in the world”. Italy is also verifying the possibility of common actions of the European Civil Protection system at European level.
