On March 28th, a 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck Myanmar. The epicenter was located in the border area between Sagaing Region and Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city. The earthquake was the strongest to hit Myanmar since 1912. More than 3,500 lives were reported lost, with another 5,000 injured, while 400 individuals are still missing. Tremors were also felt in Bangkok, where more than 40 lives were lost. In southwestern China and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, over 800 buildings were reported destroyed due to the quake. According to a report by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the epicenter of the earthquake in Myanmar was 16 km northwest of the town of Sagaing and close to the second city, Nay Pyi Taw. Nay Pyi Taw has a population of 1.5 million and is located about 200 km from the epicenter.
At around 1 p.m, the first earthquake struck Mandalay, followed by a second quake with a magnitude of 6.4 just 12 minutes later—18 km from the epicenter of the first. More than 10,000 residential buildings and places of worship were reported destroyed. Transportation access such as railways and roads was also blocked. For the Muslim community in Myanmar, this was a tragedy for Ramadan this year. March 28th, which was the last Friday of the month, claimed over 700 lives due to the devastation caused by the earthquake during Friday prayers, when Muslims had gathered for congregational worship. Traumatized Myanmar citizens, with aid hard to come by, were forced to sleep by the roadside. The stench from the bodies of victims who had yet to be recovered added to the harrowing atmosphere.
Hot weather reaching 100 degrees Celsius and rain made rescue missions difficult. And to this day the extent of the destruction is still not certain. The Myanmar junta government or the SAC State Administrative Council has blocked or censored reports related to the earthquake. This is further complicated by the electricity and internet facilities that were cut off to obtain more detailed information. The need for humanitarian assistance is urgent for the earthquake victims in Myanmar. But this need is blocked by the Myanmar junta government bureaucracy which has its own agenda to strengthen its own power.
Natural disaster worsens the situation in Myanmar
Since the military coup led by General Min Aung Hlaing in February 2021, the economic situation and the lives of the people in Myanmar have continued to deteriorate. Further compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic, which triggered a global economic crisis, the earthquake disaster has made conditions even worse for the people of Myanmar. Before the military coup in 2021, the number of people in Myanmar living without food security stood at 2.8 million. However, after the coup, that number rose to 15 million. Meanwhile, the number of displaced or homeless individuals, including the Rohingya ethnic group due to armed conflict, increased from 370,000 to 3.5 million people.
Widespread unemployment, especially among women, along with soaring prices of basic goods, such as rice, has deepened the crisis in Myanmar. The desperate need for humanitarian aid for over 2 million earthquake victims in Myanmar is exposed to the world. In fact, on the very day the earthquake occurred—just hours after it struck—the military launched an airstrike on an ethnic group in the northern Shan region, killing seven individuals. This indicates that the SAC prioritizes its own agenda of consolidating power, even while the people are in a state of emergency. This was also described in 2023 when Cyclone Mocha hit the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh and the northern regions of Rakhine and Chin. The SAC blocked humanitarian aid in both regions—an action seen as an attempt to weaken the armed ethnic groups that have maintained control in those areas.
However, this disaster has opened up some humanitarian aid to Myanmar. The city of Naypyidaw, which was among the areas destroyed by the earthquake, is the second largest city in Myanmar under the control of the junta army from ethnic rebel groups. Mandalay is majority Buddhist. This has been an important factor in maintaining the Buddhist nationalist and anti-Muslim campaign that the SAC has used to gain political influence in the military. China has announced aid of up to $150 million to Myanmar as of mid-April. This includes security forces, emergency supplies and food trucks, and search and rescue teams. Meanwhile, Russia did not disclose the amount of aid spending to Myanmar. But it was among the earliest teams to send 120 rescue and search workers, health workers, and 68 tons of food aid, generators, tents and emergency kits.
On the other hand, the United States announced that it would send only 3 individuals in the USAID team with an initial assistance of only $2 million, then added another $7 million on March 31, bringing the total to about $9 million. The low amount and minimal initiative from the US raises questions about the Trump 2.0 government’s plan to face Chinese competition in Myanmar and the Southeast Asian region. Despite persistent criticism of USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) as a vehicle of U.S. imperialism in poorer nations, its funds could still be directed toward providing vital humanitarian assistance in Myanmar. We argue that any assistance, regardless of mission, operation or distribution relief kits, must democratically involve the working class and ordinary people. This is to guarantee every victim receives adequate assistance regardless of ethnic or religious identity. The same applies to search and rescue missions, which must receive full democratic participation from the working class and the people of Myanmar.
The Trump 2.0 government’s erratic measures are a reaction to a capitalist system that is in crisis. The White House announcement of tariffs on countries, especially China, using a formula that it has designed itself, then changed, shows how the US capitalist class is in a desperate position to maintain its power as the world’s leading capitalist power. The restructuring of USAID itself shows the US’s inability to fund projects that expand its own imperialism. Nevertheless, a complete U.S. withdrawal from Myanmar remains improbable. The ongoing conflict between the junta government, rebel ethnic groups and the NUG, as well as the rise of anti-China sentiment, can be used by the US to gain influence. Myanmar is a strategic location in Asia, with a coastline as far as 2000 kilometers along the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman sea, located close to the western entrance of the Strait of Malacca and directly connected to the Indian Ocean. This coupled with natural wealth, such as petroleum, gold and copper for use in manufacturing technology today, makes Myanmar a strategic location in Asia for US capitalists and allies. The same geopolitical interest also applies in the context of China and Russia, as capitalist powers seeking to expand geopolitical expansion and resources.
Political and economic struggle
The competition for submarine sales between China and Russia to Myanmar, for example, shows the struggle between the two capitalist countries. The Irrawaddy website, a liberal media platform, quoted One Guide (a Chinese-language media outlet reporting on the unrest in northern Myanmar), revealed China’s concern over the junta, using the Russian Wagner Group to assist conflicts in Myanmar. Ironically, Russia and China are the biggest drivers of the armed conflict in Myanmar, as the country’s main arms suppliers. Attack jets and drones were sold to the junta by China and Russia and caused the situation to worsen for ordinary people in Myanmar after the coup.
Natural disasters in situations of armed conflict, poverty and an uncertain future are conditions that no individual deserves, especially the poor and working class who do not have access to free themselves from destitute conditions. Therefore, there is no other way for the people of Myanmar but a political and economic struggle based on a class position that cuts across divisive identities. The momentum from the protests against the coup last February 2021 should be continued with the realization that truly meaningful change only exists in the hands of ordinary people and the working class. Not elite individuals like Aung San Suu Kyi, or any NUG representative, nor armed ethnic groups that are unable to bring any alternative to the situation in Myanmar.
It is difficult for the youth and the working class to organize grassroots struggles in Myanmar, at this time. Therefore, a call based on regional and international working class solidarity must also be made, as a movement against a capitalist agenda which only cares about its class interests, regardless of what the masses have to bear.