The Omen: An Earthquake, Say Locals, Foretells the End of Myanmar’s Junta

For the past four years, the military junta that rules Myanmar has been battling multiple rebel factions to hold on to the country in a civil war that has ripped the country apart.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the fighting, millions more have been displaced. The economy is in ruins, and the country has been grappling with a currency crisis and spiking inflation. About 20 million people in the country of 54 million are in desperate need of humanitarian aid.

Then came an earthquake.

Last Friday, a 7.7 magnitude earthquake ripped through the center of the country, hitting the second-largest city, Mandalay, and its surroundings, including the capital of Naypyidaw. It collapsed buildings, bridges, and roads, killing an estimated 3,000 people, with more than 4,500 injured. That number is expected to rise, say Myanmar officials. Almost 500 people are missing.

The disaster has left thousands of people homeless and others sleeping outside out of fear. “Having lived through the terror of the earthquake, people now fear aftershocks and are sleeping outside on roads or in open fields,” said aid officials from the International Rescue Committee in Mandalay. “However, in towns and cities, safe spaces are scarce.”

The quake was so powerful that it was felt as far as the Thai capital, Bangkok, about 800 miles away, where it brought down a skyscraper and killed at least 20 people.

In the days following the earthquake, residents picked through the rubble of high-rises and pagodas with their bare hands in search of survivors, while countries such as China and Russia sent help – both countries are allies of Myanmar’s military junta.

Still, most countries were struggling to get aid in, stymied by the collapse of the air traffic control tower and runways at Naypyidaw International Airport. They were also wary of the expected aftershocks, structures continuing to collapse, and the instability of the situation – a country in the middle of civil war where the fighting is complicating aid and rescue efforts.

That Myanmar’s ruling generals, led by President Min Aung Hlaing, requested foreign assistance underscores the severity of the situation given the junta’s years of international isolation, said analysts. Still, the government knows it hasn’t even been able to provide regular trash collection or other basic services to residents in years, partly because so many civil servants fled the regime to rebel-held areas.

At the same time, it’s those civil servants along with disbanded civic organizations, that would have been the ones to help survivors of the quake and deliver aid, wrote the Washington Post.

Meanwhile, the country’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) – the deposed elected government in exile, which coordinates the various rebel groups fighting the junta – declared a two-week, unilateral, partial ceasefire to facilitate emergency relief operations across quake-hit areas, the Associated Press reported.

Its ceasefire, which took effect two days after the quake, meant that its armed wing, the People’s Defense Force, would halt offensive operations in affected areas and cooperate with international agencies to ensure the safe delivery of aid.

The junta, meanwhile, continued their airstrikes the day after the earthquake in Karin and Shan states and other areas near the epicenter of the quake.

“It’s outrageous and unacceptable,” United Nations Special Rapporteur Tom Andrews told the BBC, warning that the strikes would hinder rescue and aid efforts. “The incredible damage that’s going to be created, first of all, (and then it is) just a diversion of people having to deal with this military operation, and divert relief operations — but obviously if you’ve got bombs being dropped from the sky while you’re trying to rescue people, it’s nothing short of incredible.”

Myanmar’s civil war erupted after the military seized power from Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government in February 2021, arresting elected officials and sparking mass protests. The junta’s crackdowns on demonstrators elicited public outrage and helped the resistance movement – supported by some ethnic armed groups, which is pushing for a return to democracy.

Over the past year, three ethnic-based armies have gained ground against the Myanmar central government’s forces along with the People’s Defense Force.

These gains have put pressure on the junta, Newsweek wrote. The junta controls less than a quarter of the country now. Its forces are weak, and it has had to deal with both soldiers and civilians abandoning it.

This situation has led analysts to speculate for the past few months whether the junta was nearing collapse, even before the earthquake hit the country.

Still, it is holding on. Earlier this year, the junta began to redouble its efforts to increase the number of men – and now women – drafted into the military: Many young civilians are trying to flee the country to avoid conscription. As a result, Frontier Myanmar magazine detailed how some young people are being kidnapped and forced to fight.

“The country’s youth have never faced threats to their survival and future as severe as today,” wrote Nyi Nyi Kyaw of the University of Bristol in the Conversation.

Still, the people of Myanmar are very superstitious, even the leader of the junta. And historically, disasters in the country have been seen as “cosmic judgments against evil and unjust rulers,” the Lowy Institute noted. As a result, some locals believe the quake spells the end of Myanmar’s military rule.

“Min Aung Hlaing has run out of luck,” a retired member of Myanmar’s military told Al Jazeera. “Nature itself is now punishing him – the earthquake is a sign of his downfall.”