Rescue efforts from Myanmar’s deadly earthquake wind down as death toll hits 3,600

Myanmar earthquake aftermath: Rescue efforts wind down, relief efforts increase, death toll surpasses 3,600, and ceasefire violations persist.

Long-shot efforts to find survivors from Myanmar’s devastating March 28 earthquake were winding down on Monday, as rescue efforts were supplanted by increasing relief and recovery activity. The death toll surpassed 3,600 and was still climbing.

A situation report issued late on Monday by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, said more than 17.2 million people are living in affected areas, and urgently need food, drinking water, health care, cash assistance and emergency shelter.

In the capital, Naypyitaw, people cleared debris and collected wood from their damaged houses under drizzling rain, and soldiers removed wreckage at some Buddhist monasteries.

Myanmar Fire Services Department said on Monday that rescue teams had recovered 10 bodies from the rubble of a collapsed building in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second biggest city.

It said international rescuers from Singapore, Malaysia and India had returned to their countries after their work to find survivors was considered completed. The number of rescue teams operating in the residential areas of Naypyitaw has been steadily decreasing.

The 7.7 magnitude quake hit a wide swath of the country, causing significant damage to six regions and states. The earthquake left many areas without power, telephone or cell connections and damaged roads and bridges, making the full extent of the devastation hard to assess.

Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, a spokesperson for the military government, said late on Monday that the quake’s death toll has reached 3,600, with 5,017 injured and 160 missing. He said search and rescue operations involved 1,738 personnel from 20 countries, and had helped find and extract 653 survivors.