Staff Reporter:
The government has announced sending a rescue team to aid relief operations in the quake-hit Myanmar areas.
A rescue team of the Bangladesh Armed Forces will fly to Myanmar Sunday on a special aircraft for providing medicines, relief materials, and medical assistance on an urgent basis in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake, the Inter Services Public Relation Directorate (ISPR) said on Saturday.
A severe lack of medical supplies is hampering efforts in Myanmar to respond to the earthquake, the United Nations said Saturday, adding that those affected needed urgent humanitarian assistance, reports AFP.
“A severe shortage of medical supplies is hampering response efforts, including trauma kits, blood bags, anaesthetics, assistive devices, essential medicines, and tents for health workers,” the UN humanitarian agency OCHA said in an update.
At least 1,644 people were killed and more than 3,400 injured in Myanmar, with at least 139 more missing, the junta said in a statement. Rescuers dug through the rubble of collapsed buildings in a desperate search for survivors.
The shallow 7.7-magnitude quake struck northwest of the city of Sagaing in central Myanmar early Friday afternoon, followed minutes later by a 6.7-magnitude aftershock.
This was the biggest quake to hit Myanmar in decades, according to geologists, and the tremors were powerful enough to severely damage buildings across Bangkok, hundreds of kilometres away from the epicentre.
