Three days after the earthquake in central Myanmar on Friday, March 28, restrictions imposed by the country's military regime, electricity shortages, supply difficulties, a severe lack of drinking water and intense heat are aggravating the humanitarian crisis in the country.

The official death toll in the Mandalay and Sagaing regions, as well as in the capital, Naypyidaw, comes to 1,700. In the evening on Sunday, March 30, the independent Myanmar website DVB put the death toll at 2,928 across all the affected regions. A French couple, in their 50s, on a trip to Mandalay have died – they were in a restaurant when the 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck, at 12:50 pm, according to the newspaper Var Matin.

In Mandalay, where most of the news is shared via social media and civil society, an entire neighborhood was devastated by fire. An airport hall, where 600 monks were gathered to sit an exam, collapsed on its occupants. The collapse of several mosques at Friday prayer time was particularly devastating for the Muslim community, which is relatively important in central Myanmar. Moreover, many of the mosques have been denied the necessary permits to carry out renovations, due to the discrimination to which Myanmar's Muslims are subjected, which has been documented by NGOs for many years.

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