Sawt Falasteen - Myanmar to hold minute of silence for more than 2,000 quake dead

Four days after the shallow 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck, many people in Myanmar are still sleeping outdoors, either unable to return to ruined homes or afraid of further aftershocks.

The country will come to a standstill at 12:51:02 (0621 GMT) -- the precise time the quake struck on Friday -- to remember those lost.

The ruling junta has asked the population to pause at that time, and said media should halt broadcasting and display mourning symbols, while prayers will be offered at temples and pagodas.

The gesture is part of a week of national mourning declared by the junta, with flags to fly at half-mast on official buildings until April 6 "in sympathy for the loss of life and damages".

The junta said Monday that 2,056 have now been confirmed dead, with more than 3,900 people injured and 270 still missing. At least 19 people died in neighbouring Thailand.

But the toll is expected to rise significantly as rescuers reach towns and villages where communications have been cut off by the quake.

- Sleeping in the open -

Mandalay, Myanmar's second city and home to more than 1.7 million people, suffered some of the worst destruction, with many residential buildings collapsed into piles of rubble.

Hundreds of residents spent a fourth night sleeping in the open, either because their homes were destroyed or because they were afraid aftershocks would cause more damage.

"I don't feel safe. There are six or seven-floor buildings beside my house leaning, and they can collapse anytime," Soe Tint, a watchmaker, told AFP after sleeping outside.

Some of those camping out have tents but many -- including babies and children -- have been bedding down on blankets in the middle of roads, staying as far away as possible from damaged buildings.

Around the city apartment complexes have been flattened, a Buddhist religious complex eviscerated and hotels crumpled and twisted into ruins.

At some disaster sites the smell of rotting bodies was unmistakable.

On the outskirts of Mandalay a crematorium has received hundreds of bodies for disposal, with many more to come as victims are dug out of the rubble.

Fear of aftershocks has forced the city's 1,000-bed general hospital to move its patients into the car park, where they lie on gurneys with only a thin tarpaulin rigged overhead to shield them from the fierce tropical sun.

- International aid effort -

Even before Friday's quake, Myanmar's 50 million people were suffering, the country ravaged by four years of civil war sparked when the army ousted Aung San Suu Kyi's civilian government in 2021.

The UN says at least 3.5 million people were displaced by the conflict before the quake, many of them at risk of hunger.

The junta says it is doing its best to respond to the disaster but there have been multiple reports in recent days of the military carrying out airstrikes on armed groups opposed to its rule, even as the country reels from the quake's devastation.

UN special envoy to Myanmar Julie Bishop called Monday for all parties to cease hostilities and focus on protecting civilians and delivering aid.

In response to the quake, junta chief Min Aung Hlaing issued an exceptionally rare appeal for foreign assistance, breaking with the isolated ruling generals' customary practice of shunning help from abroad in the wake of major disasters.

International aid efforts since the quake have included an emergency appeal for $100 million to help victims from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

China, Russia and India have in recent days sent teams of responders to Myanmar, while the United States said Monday it had also dispatched a group of "humanitarian experts".

Tuesday is expected to be another scorching day in the country, with no cloud cover expected in Mandalay and temperatures of nearly 40 degrees Celsius.

Hundreds of miles away, workers in Bangkok on Tuesday continued clearing a mound of rubble formed when a 30-storey skyscraper -- under construction at the time of the quake -- collapsed.

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V.AbuAwwad--SF-PST