A 26-year-old man was pulled out alive from the rubble of a hotel five days after a 7.7 magnitude earthquake devastated Myanmar, even as hopes faded of finding more survivors.
The man was retrieved by a team of Myanmarese and Turkish rescue workers in the capital Naypyidaw after a nine-hour operation on Tuesday, local media reported.
Shirtless and covered in dust, Naing Lin Tun appeared weak but conscious in a video released by the local fire department as he was fitted with an IV drip and taken away.
The rescue workers used an endoscopic camera to pinpoint his location in the rubble and confirm that he was alive, officials said. The man was gingerly pulled through a hole jackhammered through a floor and loaded onto a gurney nearly 108 hours after he was trapped in the hotel where he worked.
The rescue appeared miraculous as the man’s chances of survival under the rubble had dropped quickly with each day after the first 24 hours.
Fire officials said on Tuesday that they had earlier rescued a 63-year-old woman from the rubble of a building in the capital.
The most powerful earthquake to jolt Myanmar in a century killed at least 2,886 people, destroyed thousands of buildings and pagodas, flattened roads, and toppled buildings hundreds of miles away in neighbouring Thailand.
The earthquake collapsed a high-rise building under construction in Bangkok. One body was recovered from the rubble on Wednesday, raising the death total in Bangkok to 22 and the number of the injured to 34, most at the construction site.
The head of Myanmar's military junta, Senior Gen Min Aung Hlaing, told a forum for relief donations in Naypyidaw that 4,521 people suffered injuries and 441 were missing, state media reported.
"Among the missing, most are assumed to be dead. There is a narrow chance for them to remain alive," he said in a speech.
He said Friday's earthquake was the second most powerful in the country's recorded history after an 8-magnitude quake struck east of Mandalay in May 1912.
The real scale of the devastation was not known due to limited information emerging from a country already wracked by a deadly conflict between the military junta, which seized power in a 2021 coup, and a number of armed ethnic rebel groups seeking autonomy or independence.
The death toll was expected to rise, even though the junta had allegedly enforced a blackout on the reporting of casualties among military personnel in the capital.
“Around 100 soldiers and their families were killed in battalions across Naypyidaw," a military defector told The Irrawaddy.
The earthquake has only deepened the dire humanitarian crisis caused by the civil war, which has displaced over 3 million people and left nearly 20 million in need of assistance, according to the UN.
Several countries have pledged millions of dollars in assistance to help Myanmar as well as humanitarian aid organisations deal with the devastation and its aftermath.
Australia on Wednesday said it was giving $4.5m in addition to $1.25m it had already committed and had a rapid response team on the ground.
India sent two Navy ships with supplies and around 200 rescue workers. China sent 270 rescue and relief workers, Russia 212, and the UAE 122.
The US said it would provide $2m in emergency assistance and send a US Agency for International Development team to determine how best to respond given limited resources due to the slashing of the foreign aid budget.
