Rescuers race the clock as Myanmar earthquake death toll climbs past 2,000

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Myanmar has raised the death toll from last week’s devastating earthquake to more than 2,000.

The country’s military-led government announced on Monday that the casualty count had grown to 2,056 people, with a further 3,900 injured, and declared a weeklong mourning period.

Meanwhile, the search and rescue effort was reportedly being slowed by a lack of resources and equipment and damaged infrastructure.

The magnitude 7.7 earthquake hit Myanmar at midday on Friday, causing widespread damage, including in the capital Naypitaw. A second, magnitude 6.4 tremor followed shortly afterwards.

The earthquake’s epicentre was about 17km (11 miles) west of the country’s second-largest city, Mandalay, which has a population of nearly 1.5 million.

Government spokesman Major-General Zaw Min Tun told state-run MRTV on Monday that 270 people are missing in the Mandalay region, where tremors damaged infrastructure like mosques, bridges and the city’s airport.

The earthquake also shook neighbouring Thailand and killed at least 18 people, many at a construction site in Bangkok where a partially built high-rise collapsed.

Slowed rescue effort

Rescuers have expressed concern that the effort to find survivors is facing problems and noted that most survivors need to be rescued within three days of such a disaster if they are to live.

Myanmar’s neighbours – including India, China, Malaysia, and Singapore – have dispatched aircraft and warships carrying relief supplies.

Wai Phyo, a rescue worker in Myanmar, told Al Jazeera that recovery teams in Mandalay were doing their best but were overwhelmed by the scale of destruction and the lack of “proper equipment”.

The true number of people killed and injured across the region is probably many times the official figure but with telecommunication outages, little is known about the damage in many areas.