Myanmar earthquake death toll passes 1,700

The death toll from the earthquake in Myanmar continued to rise on Sunday, March 30, 2025, with about 1,700 people reported dead, 3,400 injured, and more than 300 missing.

Foreign rescue teams and aid rushed into the impoverished country, where hospitals were overwhelmed and communities scrambled to mount rescue efforts with limited resources.

The 7.7-magnitude earthquake, one of Myanmar’s strongest in a century, jolted the war-torn Southeast Asian nation on Friday, March 28.

The junta chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, warned that the number of fatalities could go up and his administration faced a challenging situation, three days after he made a rare call for international assistance.

An armed resistance movement against Myanmar’s military-run government criticised the junta on Sunday for conducting airstrikes on villages even as the country reels from an earthquake.

The Karen National Union, one of Myanmar’s oldest ethnic armies, said in a statement that the junta “continues to carry out airstrikes targeting civilian areas, even as the population suffers tremendously from the earthquake.”

Myanmar earthquake death toll rises to 1,644

The group said that under normal circumstances, the military would be prioritising relief efforts, but instead is focused on “deploying forces to attack its people”.

A spokesman for the junta did not reply to queries from Reuters about the criticism.

A state of emergency was declared in six regions of Myanmar following the devastating earthquake, while rescue teams in Thailand’s capital Bangkok continue their frantic search for 78 people still missing in the debris of a collapsed 30-storey tower.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is on the ground in both countries, providing emergency aid and coordinating rescue operations, WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic in Geneva said.

The Star