UN urges relief efforts in Myanmar

The death toll from last week’s massive earthquake in Myanmar rose to 3,455, state media said Saturday, as UN agencies and foreign aid donors ramped up their emergency relief efforts.

- 

The 7.7-magnitude quake hit a wide swath of the country, causing significant damage to six regions and states, including the capital Naypyitaw. The earthquake left many areas without power, telephone, or cell connections and damaged roads and bridges, making the full extent of the devastation hard to assess.

It also worsened an already dire humanitarian crisis triggered by the country’s civil war that has internally displaced more than three million people and left nearly 20 million in need, according to the United Nations.

The military government’s leader, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, has said the earthquake was the second most powerful in the country’s recorded history after a magnitude-eight quake east of Mandalay in May 1912.

Min Aung Hlaing told Cabinet members Saturday that the quake’s death toll has reached 3,455, with 2,840 injured and 214 missing, according to a report on state television MRTV.