The full extent of the damage unclear caused by the quake on Sunday morning remains unclear as the country has a limited official disaster response system.
Mandalay, Burma's second-biggest city and the nearest population hub to the earthquake, reported no casualties or widespread damage. The city lies about 72 miles south of the quake's epicentre, near the town of Shwebo.
The US Geological Society reported a 5.8-magnitude aftershock, but there were no initial reports of additional damage or casualties. An official from Burma's meteorological department said the quake struck at 7.42am local time.
Smaller towns closer to the quake's epicentre were worse hit. A report on state television, MRTV, said 100 homes, some government buildings and a primary school were damaged in Thabeikyin, a gold-mining town not far from the epicentre. It said four people had been killed and 53 injured, with another four missing – a death toll lower than independently compiled tallies of about a dozen.
The area surrounding the epicentre has several gemstone mines, many of which are said to have collapsed. The biggest single death toll was reported by a local administrative officer in Sintku township, on the Irrawaddy River near the quake's epicentre, who said six people had died there and 11 injured.
He said some of the dead had been miners, who were killed when a gold mine collapsed. He spoke on condition of anonymity because local officials are not allowed to release information to the media.
Rumours circulated in Rangoon of other mine collapses trapping workers, but none of the reports could be confirmed.
According to news reports, several people died when a bridge under construction across the Irrawaddy river collapsed east of Shwebo. The bridge linked Sintku, 40 miles north of Mandalay on the east bank of the Irrawaddy, with Kyaukmyaung on the west bank.
The Weekly Eleven magazine website said four people had been killed and 25 injured when the bridge, which was under construction, fell. The local government said two had died in the collapse and 16 injured. All of the victims are believed to be construction workers.
The website also reported that two monasteries in Kyaukmyaung had collapsed, killing two people.
"This is the worst earthquake I felt in my entire life," said Soe Soe, a 52-year-old Shwebo resident. She said the large concrete gate of a local monastery had crumbled and several sculptures from another pagoda had been damaged.
Further damage was reported in Mogok, a key gem-mining area east of the quake's epicentre. Temples were battered there, as were some abandoned mines.
"Landslides occurred at some ruby mines, but there were no casualties because these are old mines," Sein Win, a Mogok resident told Weekly Eleven.
State television reported that more than a dozen pagodas and stupas in five townships had been damaged, with many of their so-called umbrellas atop the dome-shaped structures destroyed. The uppermost parts of the domes usually contain encased relics of the Buddha and sometimes jewels. Damage to them is viewed as a particularly bad omen. A witness said police were guarding a damaged stupa and its exposed relics in Mogok.
A resident of Naypyitaw, 225 miles south of the epicentre, said several windows of the parliament building had been broken.
The quake was also felt in Bangkok, the capital of neighbouring Thailand.
It comes a week before a scheduled visit to Burma by President Barack Obama. He will be the first US president to visit the former pariah nation, which is emerging from decades of military rule.
The disaster is the second to strike the area in three days. On Friday, a tanker train derailed about 80 miles north of Shwebo, killing at least 25 people when overturned carriages burst into flames.
Many people in Burma are superstitious, and soothsayers have pointed out that the quake occurred on the 11th day of the 11th month.
Sunday 11 November 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/11/burma-earthquake-feared-dead
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