The devastating cost of the Myanmar earthquake

A 7.7 magnitude earthquake slammed central Myanmar on March 28, leaving a trail of destruction across the cities of Naypyitaw, Sagaing, and Mandalay. Bodies are still being pulled from rubble several weeks later, as families search desperately for missing loved ones. We assess the ongoing humanitarian crisis and analyse its far-reaching effects on Myanmar’s people, buildings, economy, and recovery prospects.

Scale of Destruction

"We’ve never seen anything like this," explained a local official who requested anonymity. The death count remains contested–government authorities claim 3,700 lives lost. According to the US Geological Survey, the count could climb beyond 10,000. Hospitals overflow with more than 5,000 injured victims. Between 148 and 270 people remain missing, their families clinging to diminishing hope. UN workers wading into the devastation report approximately 17 million affected across 60 townships. 

Naypyitaw’s government quarter looks like a war zone, witnesses say. Sagaing and its neighbours, Wetlet and Shwebo, resemble ghost towns. In the Mandalay region, Madaya, Singu, and Thabbeikyin villages saw streets flattened in seconds. The tremors claimed the lives of farmers, shopkeepers, schoolchildren, and even high-ranking ministry officials. Locals and humanitarian workers now see bodies starting to pile up and the stench is reported to be increasingly unbearable in the epicentre of Sagaing.

Housing and Displacement

The housing crisis staggers the imagination. Nearly 52,000 homes across Myanmar lie cracked, crumbled, or completely flattened. A government worker, who shared documents on condition of anonymity, revealed a shocking internal assessment of Naypyitaw’s staff housing: among 1,556 buildings surveyed, 116 pancaked completely, while 494 more leaned precariously, their structural integrity compromised beyond repair. Multiple survey respondents reported that their homes were not safe to sleep in.  

Local engineers estimate about 80% of government buildings and staff apartments throughout the nation’s capital sustained damage. Families crowd into canvas tents, school gymnasiums, and relatives’ already-cramped homes. Authorities scrambled to establish 75 relief camps across Naypyitaw that now shelter over 2,900 homeless families. Meanwhile, more than 23,800 families fled the capital entirely, creating a secondary crisis in towns such as Pyinmana, Taungoo, and Yangon, where housing and services were already stretched thin. “I jump at every sound,” admitted a mother of three sleeping under a tarp. “The children cry whenever the ground shakes even a little.” With dark monsoon clouds gathering on the horizon, many soon face the prospect of rain-soaked displacement camps.

Infrastructure Damage

Myanmar’s infrastructure lies in tatters. Government facilities took a devastating hit–over 5,400 administration buildings stand empty, their cracked walls and sagging roofs too dangerous to enter. The healthcare system teeters on collapse, with more than 600 hospitals and clinics damaged when needed most. World Health Organization teams documented three hospitals destroyed and 22 others partially crippled, leaving thousands without medical care.

Education faces similar devastation: more than 2,600 schools require major repairs or complete rebuilding, leaving a generation of students without classrooms. Myanmar’s tourism infrastructure, already struggling after years of political turmoil, suffered another crushing blow with 250 hotels and guesthouses rendered unusable. 

The country’s cultural heritage paid perhaps the heaviest price–around 5,100 religious structures lie damaged or destroyed, including 5,275 pagodas/stupas and 3,094 monasteries/nunneries. Critical water management faces unprecedented challenges, with 198 dams showing cracks or structural concerns. 

Transportation networks resemble a child’s broken toy–148 bridges damaged, including the complete collapse of the vital Irrawaddy Bridge. The essential Yangon-Naypyitaw-Mandalay corridor, Myanmar’s economic lifeline, reported damage across 148 sections. Tangled electrical wires hang uselessly in countless villages from leaning poles while communication towers lie twisted and silent.

Business and Economic Disruption

“We’ve lost everything,” said a tearful shop owner standing before her collapsed storefront in Mandalay. Similar scenes play out across commercial districts where businesses stand shuttered indefinitely. The military administration has not bothered to discuss recovery strategies with struggling merchants and factory owners. “They don’t care about us,” insisted a textile manufacturer whose equipment now lies buried under concrete. 

Government functions are being hastily relocated–key ministries including Foreign Affairs, Hotels and Tourism, Immigration and Population, Commerce, and the Central Bank. Civil servants who remain amid the devastation describe absurd working conditions, some typing reports while sitting under plastic tarps as aftershocks rumble beneath them.

Construction costs have exploded precisely when rebuilding becomes essential. Before the earthquake, a bag of cement could be bought for around15,000 MMK ($7 USD); now 30,000 MMK ($14 USD) is not enough. , Desperate contractors, further, offer construction workers almost triple wages, from 10,000 MMK ($5) to 25,000 MMK ($12) daily. 

Mandalay’s historic Zay Cho Taw market, once a bustling commercial centre, stands eerily quiet, its damaged stalls abandoned. The garment industry, Myanmar’s economic backbone, took a direct hit with factories in Wundwin town lying in ruins. Adding insult to injury, residents returning to collapsed government housing complexes discovered widespread looting–electronics, jewellery, and valuables picked clean from the ruins, as locals sighed, “hunger was the reason; people scramble to feed family and children.”

Humanitarian Impact

The human suffering defies description. A Buddhist monastery that stood for centuries collapsed in seconds, burying 200 monks beneath ancient timbers and stone. A preschool classroom disintegrated during morning lessons, silencing the voices of 50 young children and their two teachers forever. Seven hundred Muslims perished while gathered in prayer at mosques during Ramadan services. “I pulled my brother’s body from the mosque myself,” recounted a hollow-eyed survivor. 

For many communities, this catastrophe compounds existing traumas–numerous affected villages were already hosting families displaced by devastating floods last year. Before the earth shook, more than three million Myanmar citizens were already living as refugees in their own country, driven from their homes by seemingly endless civil conflict. Aid workers describe nearly impossible conditions–attempting emergency medicine by flashlight, rationing dwindling fuel supplies, and coordinating relief efforts through spotty phone connections that drop every few minutes. UN medical coordinators report shortages of everything from surgical supplies to blood transfusion equipment, anaesthetics, basic medicines, and mental health resources. 

Yet amid the bleakness, one small mercy emerged–food supplies have remained surprisingly stable. “Rice and oil availability remains stable, and stores are open as usual,” explained one merchant. Alternative supply routes through Meiktila and mountainous Shan State proved critical workarounds. The still-functioning Sagaing Bridge became a lifeline, allowing food shipments to flow between Mandalay and hard-hit Sagaing regions.

Recovery Challenges and Efforts

The earthquake was the crisis on top of two crises–the brutality caused by the military coup, and the slow recovery from the COVID-19 crisis, all in a matter of less than five years. The path forward looks impossibly steep. Economic analysts estimate the military administration faces expenditures of “billions or trillions of kyats” merely to restore basic government functionality. Bureaucratic challenges compound the physical devastation– government operations ground to a complete halt during the Thingyan New Year holiday (April 13-20). Now, terrified officials receive threatening messages ordering their return to visibly unstable buildings. “They tell us to come back or lose our jobs,” said one administrator who sleeps in his car rather than enter his cracked office building. 

In many villages, reconstruction has not even begun—residents clear rubble by hand using inadequate farm tools. Military leaders, already stretched thin by fighting on multiple fronts, lack manpower for effective disaster response. “There are no soldiers here to help us,” lamented residents of a Sagaing village where volunteer teams dig through rubble with bare hands under the punishing sun, temperatures regularly exceeding 40°C. 

International aid trickles in–China pledged 1 billion yuan ($136.7 million), while various international donors collectively promised $170 million in humanitarian assistance. The junta announced plans focusing on government buildings first, promising to restore official structures before the end of April while citizens continue sleeping outdoors. A construction company owned by Min Aung Hlaing’s son, Aung Pyae Sone, has been tipped to be among those who could win reconstruction contracts. Meanwhile, the junta’s efforts (and influence over the distribution of aid) hampered relief and rebuilding, especially in areas controlled by the opposition forces and/or in contested areas, leaving unknown numbers of victims beyond the reach of any organised assistance.

Natural Disasters and Catastrophes 

Providing aid is a necessary step in assisting the people of Myanmar, though it is made more difficult by recent changes under the Trump administration that limited USAID’s global presence. As Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated, “We’re not the government of the world.” This stance prompts questions about the geopolitical implications of the earthquake aftermath. For example, Chinese international aid might fill the vacuum of reduced American contributions, with the implications for ‘soft power’ and the global standing of the two countries in the eyes of local people and government.

However, these sentiments should prompt us to reflect on just how vulnerable we all are and how quickly a natural disaster can escalate into a moral catastrophe, especially when compounded by political corruption, violence, and systemic failures. Philosophers like Peter Singer have been influential in showing how we have an ethical obligation to help others. In his famous essay ‘Famine, Affluence, and Morality’, he argues that physical distance between our own nation and another in need is not a moral difference. 

The international community should, of course, provide aid wherever it is needed, but it must also focus on the underlying conditions that gave rise to this catastrophe in the first place. Falling victim to the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ mindset on the part of the international community, would not only deny ethical obligations but leave people already facing destitution with even more insurmountable challenges.

Dr Htwe Htwe Thein is an Associate Professor in International Business at the School of Management, Curtin University. She has almost 20 years of experience as a scholar on business and economic development in Myanmar.

Dr Adam Andreotta lecturer in the School of Management at Curtin University.

Dr. David S. A. Guttormsen is a Professor in Organisation and Management at the School of Business of the University of South-Eastern Norway.