Malaysian rescuers in Myanmar’s quake epicentre hampered by aftershocks, landmines – Go Health Pro

A Malaysian search and rescue crew – the first international team to reach Sagaing at the epicentre of Myanmar’s recent earthquake – said aftershocks and the risk of landmines had hampered the increasingly forlorn search for survivors.
Sagaing, a town of about 78,000 around 16km from the epicentre of last Friday’s 7.7 magnitude earthquake, has been pulverised by the quake which killed over 2,700 people, with the toll expected to surge. Bridges and roads have collapsed, cutting it off from Myanmar’s second-largest city of Mandalay.

Desperate scenes of residents clawing at concrete and metal to rescue loved ones gave way on Monday to the grim retrieval of bodies, as the stench of corpses pinned under the rubble overwhelmed rescuers and volunteers hurried to cremate quake victims.

Members of the Special Malaysia Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team (Smart) began operations on Monday in three locations to rescue more than a dozen people believed to have been buried under the ruins of a school and two mosques in Sagaing.

Pictures shared on Smart’s social media page showed its members working with local rescue personnel to retrieve bodies from under collapsed buildings and clearing debris by hand to reach any survivors.

Members of the Special Malaysia Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team work with local rescuers to retrieve a body in Sagaing, Myanmar. Photo: Facebook/Smart Team Malaysia

But hopes were fading fast, given the passing of the critical 72-hour window for people to survive without water, Malaysia’s National Disaster Management Agency (Nadma) said.

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