Survivor Rescued from Myanmar Hotel Rubble as Earthquake Death Toll Rises

Rescuers freed a woman from the ruins of a hotel in Myanmar, offering a glimmer of hope three days after a massive earthquake devastated the region, killing around 2,000 people.

Search teams from Myanmar and Thailand continue to race against time to find more survivors.

The woman was pulled from the rubble of the Great Wall Hotel in Mandalay, according to a statement posted by the Chinese government on Facebook.

A rescue team carried her out nearly 60 hours after the quake hit, and she was reported to be in stable condition, the Chinese embassy in Myanmar confirmed in a Facebook post.

Mandalay was near the epicenter of the 7.7-magnitude earthquake, which struck on Friday, causing widespread destruction across Myanmar and parts of neighboring Thailand.

In Bangkok, emergency crews resumed a desperate search for 76 people feared trapped under the debris of an under-construction skyscraper that collapsed during the tremors.

The United Nations has begun rushing relief supplies to an estimated 23,000 survivors in central Myanmar.

"Our teams in Mandalay are joining efforts to scale up the humanitarian response despite going through the trauma themselves," said Noriko Takagi, the U.N. refugee agency’s representative in Myanmar.

"Time is of the essence as Myanmar needs global solidarity and support through this immense devastation."

Several countries, including India, China, and Thailand, have sent relief materials and rescue teams, with additional aid arriving from Malaysia, Singapore, and Russia.

The United States has pledged $2 million in humanitarian assistance through Myanmar-based organizations.

In a statement, the U.S. government confirmed that an emergency response team from USAID is deploying to Myanmar, despite ongoing massive budget cuts to the agency under the Trump administration.

source: Reuters