by Mick the Ram

A week on from the devastating earthquake in Myanmar and the awful consequences of its impact, the death toll in the country has passed the 3,000 mark.

There are officially 3,145 people known to have lost their lives, but that figure will inevitably grow much higher with 4,589 reported injured, many seriously, and over 200 people missing presumed trapped under rubble.

Hundreds of buildings were brought down, bridges destroyed and roads buckled in the 7.7 magnitude quake, which struck on 28 March, with its epicentre close to Myanmar’s second-largest city, Mandalay.

More than 1,550 international rescuers are working alongside locals in an operation on an unimaginable scale, with supplies and equipment sent by 17 different countries.

Extreme heat and heavy rain are threatening to cause disease outbreaks such as cholera among survivors camping in the open according to the World Health Organization, and rescue efforts are being further complicated by the on-going civil war in Myanmar.

Rescuers battling stifling heat in impossible conditions

Even before the earthquake Myanmar was in turmoil, locked in a civil war that has displaced an estimated 3.5 million people, but this disaster has taken the troubles to an unprecedented level.

Rescue workers are having to work in temperatures of nearly 40C, using metal drills and cutters to break the concrete slabs that litter the region into smaller pieces.

It is slow and extremely demanding work and when cranes disturb the larger pieces, the stench of decaying bodies which is already strong, suddenly becomes overwhelming.

Every building damaged

Communities are flattened, and traumatised survivors sleep in streets, which in the northern and central parts of Mandalay, have at least one building completely collapsed and those that haven’t have cracks running through at least one of their walls, making them unsafe.

At the city’s main hospital patients are having to be treated outdoors and conditions are set to get even worse, after weather officials warned that unseasonal rain is due to arrive within the next week.

Astonishing survival after five days trapped

In all of this awful devastation there was one bright moment when after an incredible five days trapped under mounds of rubble, a 26-year-old man was miraculously pulled out alive from beneath a collapsed hotel.

That sadly was an isolated moment of elation amongst a scene of desolation and desperation with the physical and mental scars of the catastrophe predicted to last for decades.