Myanmar was in a terrible humanitarian position even before this terrible earthquake struck. A tense major battleground in the civil war is the Sagaing region, which is close to the earthquake's epicentre. It is a bastion for resistance groups that support democracy and are working to topple the military regime that was overthrown in a coup on February 1, 2021.

Over 3.5 million individuals are thought to have been uprooted from their homes as a result of the civil war. And there is a startling amount of hunger. Nearly 20 million people, or one-third of the population, will require aid this year, the UN warned before to the earthquake. The situation has gotten much worse since then.

"The damage is enormous," a Mandalay-based rescue team member tells reporters. "There are also a lot of fatalities. Since rescue operations are still underway, that's all we can tell at this time," they said. "The exact number of casualties is not yet known, but it is at least in the hundreds."