(Reuters) – United Nations officials who surveyed earthquake damage in Myanmar urged the global community on Tuesday to ramp up aid before the looming monsoon season worsens already catastrophic conditions, with the death toll at 2,719 and expected to surpass 3,000.

Drinking water, hygiene, food, shelter and medicine are the most critical needs following extensive damage to buildings, roads and bridges, said Marcoluigi Corsi, acting humanitarian and resident coordinator following a two-day visit.

“We remain, of course, deeply committed to reaching people in Myanmar who need aid,” U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said. “And we must act swiftly to provide relief before the upcoming monsoon season, which, of course, will even worsen this horrendous crisis.”

A civil war in Myanmar had displaced more than 3 million people long before the quake struck. U.N. Special Envoy for Myanmar Julie Bishop urged all sides to immediately cease fire, permit humanitarian access and ensure aid workers are safe.

“Continuing military operations in disaster-affected areas risks further loss of life,” she said in the statement.

Aid groups in Myanmar warned that the window to find survivors was closing fast.

Myanmar’s military ruler Min Aung Hlaing said the death toll from Friday’s 7.7 magnitude quake reached 2,719 as of Tuesday morning and was expected to surpass 3,000. Some 4,521 people were 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. It toppled ancient pagodas and modern buildings alike and inflicted significant damage on Myanmar’s second city Mandalay and Naypyitaw, the capital the previous junta purpose-built to be an impregnable fortress.

U.N. 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.

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 as it fought to quell a multi-pronged rebellion after the coup. It has dismissed the accusations as misinformation and says it is protecting the country from terrorists.

In neighbouring Thailand, the death toll from the quake rose to 21 on Tuesday, with hundreds of buildings damaged. Rescuers kept searching for life in the rubble of a collapsed skyscraper under construction in the capital Bangkok, but acknowledged time was against them.

COMMUNITIES FLATTENED

The region has been hit by five more aftershocks.

Julia Rees of the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF said she witnessed entire communities in Myanmar that had been flattened, with immense destruction and psychological trauma.

“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 U.N. 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 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 said, 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 was 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 seeking signs of life in the ruins of an unfinished skyscraper that collapsed, aware that four days after the quake, chances had dimmed of finding survivors.

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.”

(Reuters) – Myanmar’s deadliest natural disaster in years has strengthened the position of ruling general Min Aung Hlaing, by opening diplomatic channels closed for four years after his junta ousted an elected government to unleash a brutal civil war.

Just before Friday’s quake of magnitude 7.7 that killed almost 2,900 people, the junta chief was readying for a rare foreign visit to a regional summit in Thailand, as aides worked the phones to arrange meetings with other leaders.

It is still unclear, opens new tab if Min Aung Hlaing will attend the BIMSTEC grouping’s summit in Bangkok this week, but the disaster has helped end his isolation by most world leaders over a war that displaced 3.5 million and decimated the economy.

“The junta knows that regional powers jostling for influence in Myanmar, like India, China, and Russia would want to use this opportunity to strengthen their own toehold in the country,” said Angshuman Choudhury, an analyst based in Singapore.

“By publicly and directly engaging with regional capitals, it can demonstrate its supposed indispensability as Myanmar’s primary public authority.”

A junta spokesman did not respond to telephone calls from Reuters to seek comment.

In the past week, Min Aung Hlaing has spoken with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim – conversations that have led to a flurry of international aid.

Just weeks after the junta reaffirmed plans for a general election in December, one of the impoverished nation’s strongest earthquakes in a century has opened a new window for its leader to engage with regional powers.

The junta had steadily lost ground in the conflict sparked by the 2021 coup, suffering a string of battlefield defeats and piling unprecedented pressure on Min Aung Hlaing himself.

Key allies such as China have backstopped the junta, with efforts such as pushing major anti-junta groups to stop fighting, but even Beijing had not entirely embraced the embattled general.

He did not get an audience with Xi when he visited China in November for the first time since the coup, for example.

But during a state visit to Moscow last month, Min Aung Hlaing held court with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, one of his earliest backers after the coup.

“I would think he’s getting like everything he ever dreamt of and more right now,” said a diplomatic source in the commercial capital of Yangon, referring to the Moscow visit, the telephone call with Modi and a meeting of the ASEAN grouping.

“He’s back in the circle. He has a seat at the table.”

However, the junta is doing what it can to benefit from the crisis and deny assistance to civilians and opposition groups, said a second diplomatic source in the country.

Millions of dollars in aid, relief supplies and hundreds of rescue workers from countries such as China, India, Russia and Southeast Asia, have flooded Myanmar since the quake, though the junta keeps up military operations despite ceasefire calls.

The junta could exploit the crisis to strengthen its position in Myanmar’s battlefield, Choudhury added.

“The quake will complicate the resistance’s fight and its ability to retain support from the local population.”

TIGHTROPE WALK

Some regime hardliners believe the junta can continue with the help of a handful of allies, said Sihasak Phuangketkeow, a former Thai vice minister for foreign affairs who visited Myanmar last month.

“They see the world order as shifting, and that there is a new pole with China, Russia and India,” Sihasak told Reuters.

“They think Myanmar may be able to thrive without other engagement.”

If Min Aung Hlaing were to attend this week’s BIMSTEC summit, he would get a further opportunity for diplomatic validation, such as more engagement with India and Thailand.

BIMSTEC, or the Bay of Bengal initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, comprises Thailand, Myanmar, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bhutan.

“What I got from my recent trip was that Min Aung Hlaing doesn’t want to be just under China only,” said Sihasak.

“It is about how we can assert our own position. We should not let this opportunity to engage Myanmar slip by.”

In Bangkok, the junta chief could meet Modi, who has rushed aid and personnel to Myanmar since the quake, said three sources with knowledge of discussions.

“Modi, particularly, has already indicated that he is willing to directly engage,” said Choudhury, referring to the two leaders’ call.

The visit may also give Min Aung Hlaing a chance to meet Thaksin Shinawatra, the former Thai prime minister whom Malaysia’s Anwar appointed a personal adviser in his capacity as chairman of ASEAN.

Some analysts say Thailand is walking a tightrope by giving legitimacy to Min Aung Hlaing as he battles the armed resistance which has eroded his grip on Myanmar.

“There’s a nasty, brutal, violent civil war,” said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist at Chulalongkorn University.

“Thailand has to be very careful because it has a long border with Myanmar and lots at stake.”

(Reuters) – The Trump administration has fired staff who were working on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s bird flu response as part of its mass layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association and a source familiar with the situation.

The Tuesday firings, which many employees learned of as they attempted to enter office buildings and were denied access, are part of the administration’s effort to shrink the federal government.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said he will fire 10,000 people across the agencies under the health department.

Among those fired were leadership and administrative staff at the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine, according to the source.

The FDA did not respond to a request for comment.

An employee at the Center for Veterinary Medicine said almost all the administrative staff were terminated, along with staff on the policy, legal and external communications teams.

Managers were also eliminated in the office of the center’s director, said the employee, who recently took part in a deferred resignation program that reduced the government’s headcount.

The American Veterinary Medical Association wants to work with the U.S. Congress and the administration to restore key positions eliminated within the health department, President Sandra Faeh said. Department cutbacks affected offices dealing with bird flu, animal and human food safety, and other issues, she said.

The FDA center’s Veterinary Laboratory Investigation and Response Network tests pet food for bird flu. The FDA has issued raw pet food recalls after detecting bird flu contamination that was linked to the deaths of house cats.

The laboratory program office told staff in an email sent on Tuesday that job cuts at the center “may cause significant challenges and delays,” according to a copy of the email seen by Reuters.

While staff of the laboratory network were not cut, the axing of leadership and administrative staff will bring its operations to a halt, a source said.

Kristy Pabilonia, executive director of clinical diagnostics for Colorado State University’s Veterinary Health System, said she has relied on the center to take reports of cat infections that could be linked to pet food.

“It keeps me up at night thinking that there would be a chance that I wouldn’t have someone to report to,” she said.

The cuts are also likely to significantly disrupt efforts under way to develop bird flu testing infrastructure for aged artisan raw milk cheese, said Keith Poulsen, a veterinarian and director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory who has been involved in the effort.

Federal health officials have warned against the consumption of raw milk, which can carry a host of pathogens, because of the bird flu outbreak. Nearly one thousand U.S. dairy cattle herds have been infected with the virus over the past year. Kennedy has been a proponent of raw milk.

Coordinating bird flu testing through the national lab network is critical to tracking and managing the virus’ spread, Poulsen said.

“You chop off the head of the leadership, and now we have to reinvent that wheel. That’s not in our best interest,” he said.

Bird flu has killed nearly 170 million chickens, turkeys and other birds in an ongoing outbreak that began in 2022 and has driven egg prices to all-time highs. Prices have dipped somewhat in recent weeks amid a lull in new infections and increased imports.