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BANGKOK: Aid groups in Myanmar on Tuesday (Apr 1) described scenes of devastation and desperation after an earthquake that killed more than 2,700 people, stressing an urgent need for food, water and shelter and warning the window to find survivors was fast closing.

Myanmar's military ruler Min Aung Hlaing said the death toll from Friday's 7.7 magnitude quake was expected to surpass 3,000, having reached 2,719 as of Tuesday morning, with 4,521 people injured, and 441 missing.

"Among the missing, most are assumed to be dead. There is a narrow chance for them to remain alive," he said in a speech.

The quake, which struck at lunchtime on Friday, was the strongest to hit the Southeast Asian country in more than a century, toppling ancient pagodas and modern buildings alike.

It inflicted significant damage on Myanmar's second city Mandalay and Naypyitaw, the capital the previous junta purpose-built to be an impregnable fortress.

The earthquake was the latest in a succession of blows for the impoverished country of 53 million people following a 2021 coup that returned the military to power and devastated the economy after a decade of development and tentative democracy.

Myanmar's military has been accused of widespread atrocities against civilians in its attempts to maintain power and quell a multi-pronged rebellion that unfolded after the coup, and the civil war had displaced more than 3 million people long before the quake struck.

It has dismissed the accusations as misinformation and says it is protecting the country from terrorists.

The death toll rose to 21 in neighbouring Thailand on Tuesday, where the quake caused damage to hundreds of buildings. Rescuers pressed on searching for life in the rubble of a collapsed skyscraper under construction in the capital Bangkok, but acknowledged time was against them.

In Myanmar, UN agencies said hospitals were overwhelmed and rescue efforts hindered by infrastructure damage and the civil war. Rebels have accused the military of conducting airstrikes even after the quake and on Tuesday a major rebel alliance declared a unilateral ceasefire to help relief efforts.

COMMUNITIES FLATTENED

Aid groups raised the alarm on Tuesday over a lack of food, water and sanitation and the region was hit by five more aftershocks.

Julia Rees, of the UN children's agency UNICEF, who just returned from one of the worst affected areas near the epicentre in central Myanmar, said entire communities had been flattened and destruction and psychological trauma was immense.

"And yet, this crisis is still unfolding. The tremors are continuing. Search and rescue operations are ongoing. Bodies are still being pulled from the rubble," she said in a statement.

"Let me be clear: the needs are massive, and they are rising by the hour. The window for life-saving response is closing."

In the Mandalay area, 50 children and two teachers were killed when their preschool collapsed, the UN humanitarian agency said.

In a rare survival story, a 63-year-old woman who was trapped for 91 hours was pulled from the rubble of a building in Naypyitaw on Tuesday in a joint rescue effort by the Myanmar fire department and teams from India, China and Russia.

Myanmar's civil war has complicated efforts to reach those injured and made homeless, including tight controls over the internet and other communication networks.

The Three Brotherhood Alliance of three major rebel groups at war with the junta on Tuesday declared a unilateral one-month ceasefire, to allow urgent humanitarian efforts to "be carried out as swiftly and effectively as possible".

In its nightly news bulletin on Tuesday, state-controlled MRTV quoted Min Aung Hlaing as saying the military had halted its offensives but unspecified ethnic minority armies were planning to exploit the disaster.

"The military is aware they are gathering, training, and preparing to attack," it quoting the general as saying at an event to raise funds for quake victims. "We consider it as attacking us and will respond accordingly."

SKYSCRAPER RUBBLE

One rebel group, the Karen National Union, on Sunday said the junta had conducted airstrikes in the east of the country at a time when it should be prioritising quake relief efforts.

Amnesty International said it had received testimony corroborating reports of air strikes near areas where quake recovery efforts were focused.

“You cannot ask for aid with one hand and bomb with the other," said Amnesty's Myanmar researcher Joe Freeman.

It is unclear if Min Aung Hlaing would make a rare foreign trip this week to attend a regional summit in Bangkok as planned. Thailand's on Tuesday said the general may attend by teleconference.

In Bangkok, rescuers were still scouring the ruins of an unfinished skyscraper that collapsed for any signs of life, but aware that as four days had passed since the quake, the odds of finding survivors lengthened.

Fourteen deaths have been confirmed at the site and seven elsewhere in the city. The government is investigating the collapse and initial tests showed some steel samples from the site were substandard.

There were an estimated 70 bodies under the rubble and experts said 12 had been located using scanners, but access was blocked by large debris.

"Maybe they can survive one week or two weeks, so we have to go on," Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt said. “The experts still have hope."