President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Monday ordered the deployment of a 114-personnel humanitarian contingent to Myanmar following a powerful magnitude-7.7 earthquake that also affected parts of neighboring Thailand.
The government also approved the release of $100,000 in standby funds for affected Filipinos in Myanmar Department of Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Eduardo De Vega said.
The humanitarian contingent, scheduled to depart today (Tuesday, April 1) will include representatives from the Department of Health, Bureau of Fire Protection, Armed Forces of the Philippines, Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, and private sector groups, Palace Press Officer Claire Castro said.
“The President has instructed our agencies to act swiftly in assisting our neighboring countries. We stand in solidarity with the people of Myanmar and Thailand during this time of crisis,” Castro said.
The Philippine Air Force will transport the humanitarian team that will first travel to Thailand before proceeding to Myanmar due to logistical difficulties in accessing the quake-hit areas.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Myanmar,” added Office of the Civil Defense Administrator Ariel Nepomuceno.
De Vega said the Philippine embassy in Myanmar is prioritizing the welfare checks on the 151 Filipinos in Mandalay, all considered affected by the disaster.
While no Filipino casualties or injuries have been reported so far in Myanmar, four nationals remain missing.
“Right now, our priority is to locate and save our four missing nationals,” De Vega said.
Three of the four missing Filipinos were inside a residential building that collapsed during the quake.
Alexis Gale and Edsil Adalid, a married couple, were reportedly housed at the ninth floor of the collapsed Sky Villa condominium in Mandalay.
Edsil’s co-teacher at the Mandalay International School of Acumen, Rojan Talita, said a brown jacket recovered from the debris belonged to the missing Filipino.
“We wanted to ask everybody to keep praying that we will be able to receive a miracle for Alex and Edsil, that they are found or that they will be found alive,” Alexis’ sister, Veronica May Concepcion, said in a television interview on Sunday.
Francis Aragon, another Filipino still unaccounted for, was living on the sixth floor of the same building.
“We don’t know where he is, whether he managed to get out or if he’s still trapped inside. I just want him to be found, to see him as soon as possible,” Aragaon’s wife, Mae Kathleen, said.
Although no Filipino has requested repatriation yet, De Vega said the government would facilitate evacuation should anyone seek to return home.
The challenge, however, lies in Myanmar’s airport shutdowns, which would require repatriates to travel through Thailand.
Myanmar’s ruling junta declared a week of national mourning on Monday for the country’s devastating earthquake, which has killed more than 1,700 people, as hopes faded of finding more survivors in the rubble of ruined buildings.
National flags will fly at half-mast until April 6 “in sympathy for the loss of life and damages” from Friday’s massive 7.7-magnitude quake, the junta said in a statement.
The announcement came as the tempo and urgency of rescue efforts wound down in Mandalay, one of the worst-affected cities and the country’s second-largest, with more than 1.7 million inhabitants.
“The situation is so dire that it’s hard to express what is happening,” said Aung Myint Hussein, chief administrator of Mandalay’s Sajja North mosque.
Thousands more were injured and more than 300 remain missing.
At least 18 deaths have been confirmed hundreds of kilometers away in Bangkok, where the force of the quake caused a 30-storey tower block under construction to collapse.
However, with communications down in much of Myanmar, the true scale of the disaster has yet to emerge and the death toll is expected to rise significantly.
Mandalay’s 1,000-bed general hospital has been evacuated, with hundreds of patients being treated outside.
The challenges facing the Southeast Asian country of more than 50 million people were immense even before the earthquake.
Myanmar has been ravaged by four years of civil war sparked by a military coup in 2021, with its economy shattered and healthcare and infrastructure badly damaged.
The World Health Organization declared the quake a top-level emergency as it urgently sought $8 million to save lives and prevent disease outbreaks over the next 30 days.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has launched an appeal for more than $100 million to help victims.
International aid and rescue teams have been arriving after junta chief Min Aung Hlaing made an exceptionally rare appeal for foreign assistance.
In the past, isolated Myanmar’s ruling generals have shunned foreign assistance, even after major natural disasters.
Junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun thanked key allies China and Russia for their help, as well as India, and said the authorities were doing their best.
“We are trying and giving treatment to injured people and searching for missing ones,” he said in a statement to journalists.
In Bangkok, rain fell on Monday morning at the site of the collapsed building, where diggers continued to clear the vast pile of rubble.
Officials say they have not given up hope of finding more survivors in the wreckage, where 11 deaths have been confirmed and at least 76 people are still unaccounted for. With AFP
