Rescue hopes fading three days after deadly Myanmar quake

Massive earthquake in Myanmar and Thailand kills 1,700, leaving survivors desperate as rescue efforts face challenges.

Hopes were fading on Monday (March 31, 2025) of finding more survivors in the rubble of Mandalay, where some residents spent a third night sleeping in the open after a massive earthquake killed at least 1,700 people in Myanmar and neighbouring Thailand.

Rescue efforts were less active in the central Myanmar city of more than 1.7 million people early Monday, but conditions are difficult — with temperatures expected to reach around 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).

The sticky heat has exhausted rescue workers and accelerated body decomposition, which could complicate identification.

A desperate scene unfolded at a collapsed apartment block in Myanmar’s second biggest city on Sunday evening, when rescuers thought they had saved the life of a pregnant woman trapped under the rubble for more than 55 hours.

They amputated her leg to free her, but after pulling her out she was pronounced dead.

“We tried everything to save her,” said one of the medical responders, but she had lost too much blood from the amputation.

Muslim worshipers, meanwhile, gathered near a destroyed mosque in the city on Monday (March 31`, 2025) morning for the first prayer of Eid al-Fitr, the holiday that follows the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan.