Myanmar healthcare facilities overwhelmed, WHO says, and scale of earthquake deaths and injuries ‘not fully understood’ – as it happened (2025)

Myanmar’s ruling junta has said the death toll from Friday’s major earthquake has risen to 2,056.

AFP reports that in a statement a junta spokesperson said that 270 more people were still missing, with 3,900 people injured.

In Thailand 19 people are known to have been killed, with more than 70 still missing.

Bangkok deputy governor Tavida Kamolvej has indicated that it is felt unlikely that anybody else would be rescued from the building that collapsed there during Friday’s earthquake.

She said it had been five hours since rescue workers last detected any vital signs amid the rubble.

In a statement, the UN representative in Myanmar has said “our hearts go out to all those affected by this tragedy”.

Marcoluigi Corsi added:

The UN and its partners are urgently mobilising to support emergency response efforts and stand ready to assist all affected communities wherever they are.

Even before this earthquake, nearly 20 million people in Myanmar were in need of humanitarian assistance. This latest tragedy compounds an already dire crisis and risks further eroding the resilience of communities already battered by conflict, displacement, and past disasters.

Here is a broader view of the scene in Bangkok’s Chatuchak district, where a search and rescue operation remains ongoing amid the rubble of a collapsed 30-story building that was under construction when Friday’s earthquake struck.

Helen Davidson and Jason Tzu Kuan Lu in Taipei

More than a dozen foreign rescue teams have joined the effort in Myanmar. But a team from Taiwan – which has extensive earthquake response experience both at home and abroad, including the 2023 quake in Turkey and Northern Syria – was not among them.

A team comprising 120 rescue, medical and engineering personnel, as well as search dogs and 15 tonnes of equipment were assembled and placed on standby on Saturday. But instead they waited two days for deployment orders which never arrived. A spokesperson for the national fire agency said they don’t know why they didn’t receive an order.

Liu Shi-Fang, the minister of the interior, which oversees the department, told parliament on Monday the government had passed on the message they were ready to assist, but ultimately decided they could not guarantee the team’s safety because of the ongoing bombing in Myanmar.

“As a result, we have responded by standing down and returning to our normal operations,” Liu said.

However there remains speculation that Taiwan’s team was denied entry by Myanmar’s military rulers, who are closely aligned with China. Beijing routinely uses its power to block Taiwan’s participation in the international community. Both China and Hong Kong have rescue teams on the ground in Myanmar, where reports suggest more assistance is desperately needed.

Taiwan’s president, premier, and ministry of foreign affairs have all said in recent days that Taiwan was ready to assist, but the ministry said it had received no response from Thailand or Myanmar.

Citing local media, AFP reports that Thailand’s prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra has called a meeting with government departments responsible for sending SMS alerts to the public, amid criticism of the response on Friday when the earthquake struck.

On Saturday Paetongtarn said “Our problem is that the sending of messages was slow and did not cover enough people.”

Another investigation is ongoing into why a skyscraper under construction collapsed in Bangkok due to the effects of the quake. AFP reports that several steel rods were taken from the rubble for testing on Monday afternoon.

Another body has been removed from the site of a collapsed high-rise building in Bangkok, Reuters reports, citing volunteer rescuer group Fire and Rescue Thailand. It brings Thailand’s confirmed death toll from last week’s earthquake to 19. At least 70 people are still unaccounted for in Thailand. The death toll in Myanmar is currently put at 1,700.

Reuters reports, citing Chinese news agency Xinhua, that four people have been pulled from under buildings in Mandalay, the city in Myanmar near the epicentre of Friday’s 7.7-magnitude earthquake.

It quoted Yue Xin, head of a Chinese search and rescue team deployed to assist, saying “It doesn’t matter how long we work. The most important thing is that we can bring hope to the local people.”

The BBC has spoken to a resident in the Pyigyitagon area of Mandalay, who told the news service that people were feeling “hopeless and helpless”.

It quoted Ruate, who only gave his first name, saying “We haven’t dared sleep in our house since the earthquake happened on Friday. Power has been down and supplies are running out. Yesterday we saw bodies being brought out of collapsed buildings in our neighbourhood. It’s very sobering. We are feeling hopeless and helpless.”

The World Health Organization said it has reports of three hospitals destroyed and 22 partially damaged in the region affected by Friday’s earthquake.

The earthquake’s devastation has overwhelmed healthcare facilities in the affected areas, which are struggling to manage the influx of injured individuals. There is an urgent need for trauma and surgical care, blood transfusion supplies, anaesthetics, essential medicines, and mental health support.

WHO earlier issued an urgent flash appeal for $8m (£6.1m / €7.4m) for emergency support.